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EDMUND BUEKE’S 

1 * 




SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 

\ 

WITH AMERICA 


1775 


EDITED FOR SCHOOL USB 


BY 

JOSEPH VILLIERS DENNEY 

PBOFKSSOB IN OHIO STATK UNTVRRSITY 


CHICAGO 

SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
1898 






Copyright 1898, 

By SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 



TIVO COPIES REC'eivEO. 

’St CC^Y, 

1098 . 



CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Preface . 7 

Introduction 

Biographical Sketch of Burke - - 11 

A Brief Bibliography - - - - 21 

Text of the Speech .25 

Questions on the Literary and Rhetorical 
Qualities of the Speech - - - - 127 

A Study of the Logical Structure of the 

Speech.132 

Notes.138 

Index.153 






PREFACE 


In this edition, the aim of the editor has been to 
direct the pupil to the logical structure as well as 
to the literary and rhetorical qualities of the Speech 
on Conciliation. The logical structure, each pupil 
may discover for himself, by .making a brief of the 
speech as he reads the groups of paragraphs which 
mark the successive steps in the argument. (See 
page 132.) The literary and rhetorical qualities are 
sought through the medium of suggestive questions 
and topics for individual study. (See page 127.) 
The Introduction, therefore, does not discuss 
Burke’s style. 

The books to which the editor is chiefly indebted 
are mentioned on page 21, and in the notes. In 
the preparation of the notes, the editor also 
acknowledges indebtedness to the long line of 
editors who have preceded him. 






INTRODUCTION 


It is no exaggeration to say that they [the Speech on 
American Taxation, the Speech on Conciliation, and 
the Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol] compose the most 
perfect manual in our hterature, or in any literature, 
for one who approaches the study of public affairs, 
whether for knowledge or for practice. They are an 
example without fault of all the qualities which the 
critic, whether a theorist or an actor, of great political 
situations should strive by night and by day to possess. 
If the subject with which they deal Avere less near than 
it is to our interests and affections as free citizens, these 
three performances would still abound in the lessons of 
an incomparable political method. If their subject 
were as remote as the quarrel between Corinthians and 
Corcyra, or the war between Rome and the Allies, 
instead of a conflict to which the world owes the oppor¬ 
tunity of the most important of political experiments, 
we should still have everything to learn from the 
author’s treatment; the vigorous grasp of masses of 
compressed detail, the wide illumination from great 
principles of human experience, the strong and mascu¬ 
line feeling for the two great political ends of Justice 
and Freedom, the large and generous interpretation of 
expediency, the morality, the vision, the noble temper. 
—Morley, ^ 


V 


INTRODUCTION 

EDMUND BURKE 

Edmund Burke was born in Dublin in 1729. 
His father, a lawyer in good practice, was a 
Protestant; his mother, a Catholic. Edmund was 
reared a Protestant, but he always respected the 
faith of his mother, and in after years worked 
with zeal to secure to his Catholic countrymen 
their political rights. For two years (1741-1743) 
he went to school at Ballitore, to Abraham Shackle- 
ton, a Quaker, of whose good influence Burke 
always spoke in the highest terms. Then he 
went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he 
remained until he took his degree in 1748. From 
1744 to 1749 Oliver Goldsmith was at Trinity, but 
there is no evidence that he and Burke were 
acquainted in college, though they v/ere afterwards 
friends and comrades in London. Burke did not 
excel in the studies prescribed for him at Trinity, 
but, following his bent, read widely in natural 
philosophy, logic, metaphysics, history, and 
poetry. 

His father, intending to make a London lawyer 
of him. entered him as a student at the Middle 
Temple; and Burke accordingly took up his resi- 
11 


INTRODUCTION 


n 

dence in London, in 1750. He did not apply 
himself with diligence to his legal studies, but 
continued his college habit of reading at large in 
literature and philosophy, finding time also to 
attend the theatres and the debating clubs and to 
travel in England and on the continent. In spite 
of his neglect of routine legal study Burke some¬ 
how gained a wonderful mastery over fundamental 
legal principles, especially those underlying the 
science of government. His father however was 
greatly disappointed at Burke’s course in London, 
stopped the young man’s allowance, in 1755, and 
left him to support himself by writing for tlie 
book-sellers. The next year he published two 
books which won him distinction: A Vindication 
of Natural Society^ and A Philosophical Inquiry 
into the Origin of Our Ideas on the SuUime and 
Beautiful. The same year (1756), he married 
Jane Nugent^^who^e calm, even temper, and 
ability in household management made her 
unusually helpful to him. Their home life was 
very happy. 

In 1759 began Burke’s thirty-year connection 
with the Annual Register a summary of impor¬ 
tant events, published by Dodsley. The articles 
which Burke contributed to this publication 
marked him at once as a man of keen political 
insight and broad judgment, and brought him to 
the notice of the party leaders. From 1761 to 
1763, Burke was in Ireland as a secretary to Wil- 


INTRODUCTION 


13 


liam Gerard Hamilton (who was chief secretary to 
the Lord Lieutenant), receiving through Hamil¬ 
ton’s influence a pension of three hundred pounds. 
But it soon became evident that what was wanted 
of Burke was a slavish devotion of all his talents 
to the fortunes of Hamilton, and Burke indig¬ 
nantly left him, resigned the pension, and returned 
to the service of Dodsley in London. There he 
soon became one of the famous Literary Club, 
w^hich numbered among its members such men as 
Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick and Reynolds. 

When Lord Rockingham, the leader of a party 
of Old Whigs or Conservative Whigs, became 
Prime Minister in 1765, he made Burke his private 
secretary. In December of the same year, Burke 
was elected to Paifliament from the borough of 
Wendover, and, very soon after taking his seat in 
Januai’y, 1766, he spoke brilliantly and most 
effectively in favor of the repeal of the Stamp Act, 
urging that it was unwise and inexpedient to tax 
the colonies even if Parliament had a legal right to 
do so. After the Rockingham ministry was dis¬ 
missed in 1766, Burke might have held office 
under Pitt, Rockingham’s successor, the leader of 
the New Whigs or Radical Whigs, but he refused 
to abandon his political associates for the sake of 
personal advancement. 

In Parliament, Burke did all that he could in 
opposition to the policy of George the Third, who 
was trying to make his power absolute. He spoke 


14 


INTEODUCTION 


against excluding Wilkes from Parliament. Wilkes 
had incurred the King’s displeasure because of his 
radical opinions fearlessly expressed. He had been 
repeatedly elected to the House of Commons, and 
had been as often kept from his seat by a majority 
subservient to the King’s wishes. Burke main¬ 
tained the right of the voters to elect whomsoever 
they thought fit. As a result of the arbitrary 
course pursued by Parliament in the Wilkes affair 
there was general discontent among the people, and 
some rioting. In 1770, Burke published his 
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents^ 
in which he averred that all of England’s troubles 
had arisen from the pursuit of selfish ends by the 
King and his secret counsellors, who were breaking 
up ordeily party government and introducing con¬ 
fusion and disorder. The same year (1770) Lord 
North’s Tory ministry began its fateful career of 
twelve years, at the end of which George the Third 
found himself stripped of his American colonies. 
During these years, Burke’s voice was often heard 
in Parliament, warning the King’s ministers of 
the disasters that would surely follow their arbi¬ 
trary acts, expounding a philosophy of government 
based upon reason and righteousness, trying all 
questions by tests of truth. He never relaxed his 
efforts, although he knew beforehand that they 
were doomed to failure at the hands of a Parlia¬ 
ment in control of the “King’s friends.” 

In 1774, Bristol, then the second city in Eng- 


INTRODUCTION 


15 


land, elected Burke as its representative in Parlia¬ 
ment. Bristol had a large trade with America, 
and had much to lose if the troubles with the colo¬ 
nies should grow into war. While he was member 
for Bristol he delivered the Speech on American 
Taxation (April 19, 1774), in which he urged the 
repeal of the tea tax; the Speech on Conciliation 
with the Colonies (March 22, 1775); and wrote 
the Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol on the Affairs 
of America (April 3, 1777), in which he justified 
his course in Parliament. Burke felt through all 
these years of war that the cause of liberty in Eng¬ 
land itself was endangered by the employment of 
armed force against the colonies. K the King 
could use an army against Englishmen in the colo¬ 
nies, in a controversy over a question of constitu¬ 
tional right, what was to prevent him from using 
an army against Englishmen at home whenever in 
the future they should make a similar claim of 
constitutional right against him? It was indeed 
fortunate for English liberty that the colonies were 
finally victorious. Burke represented Bristol until 
1780, when he failed of re-electi6n because, con¬ 
trary to the narrow and selfish instructions of his 
constituents, he had voted in favor of a bill to 
relieve Irish commerce of some grievous restric¬ 
tions. Burke did not believe that a representative 
is bound to vote according to the wishes of his 
constituents if so to vote be against his own judg¬ 
ment of what is right and best. Rejected by 


16 


INTRODUCTION 


Bristol, he was elected by the borough of Mal- 
ton. 

When, after Yorktown, Lord North’s niinistry 
came to an end (1782), the Rockingham party 
again came into power. Burke now had a right to 
expect a cabinet office. He was the. ablest and 
most conspicuous member of the party; he had 
kept it together against the King’s efforts to 
destroy it; he had brought great honor to it by his 
speeches. Yet he was not admitted to the cabinet, 
but was appointed to a second-rate position as 
Paymaster of the Forces. Some of the reasons 
why it was not considered good politics, in the 
England of the eighteenth century, to give Burke 
a cabinet position were his nationality and his 
obscure origin; his poverty and his debts; his liberal 
views on the Catholic question; charges (never 
proved) against his honesty, arising from his close 
intimacy with relatives of his who were known to 
have engaged in certain questionable speculations; 
an irritability of temper which increased with age; 
and the large number of political enemies he had 
made. For such reasons the first political thinker 
of the age was set aside by his party associates on 
the one occasion when they had the opportunity of 
rewarding him. Burke felt the neglect keenly. 
Rockingham died in three months. Burke refused 
office under Shelburne; went into opposition with 
Fox, Shelburne’s rival for the leadership; th^ 
Whig party was consequently split in twain, and 


INTRODUCTION 


17 


the Shelburne ministry went to pieces in 1783. 
Then the Coalition ministry was formed, including 
such incongi’uous elements as the Whig, Fox, and 
the Tory, Lord FTorth, with Burke as Paymaster 
again. Fox brought in a bill to reform the govern¬ 
ment of India. Burke advocated the bill, and it 
passed the House of Commons, but the King, 
procuring its defeat in the House of Lords, dis¬ 
missed Fox at the close of 1783. With the 
advent of the Pitt ministry Burke went out of 
executive office forever. 

Of the three great subjects that engaged Burke’s 
powers during his public career,—America, India, 
and France,—the second had now become prom¬ 
inent. For many year^ Burke had studied the 
history and the workings of English rule in India. 
He had made himself the best-informed man in 
England on that subject. He knew that the East 
India Company had become terribly corrupt and 
cruel; that it had plundered whole provinces, and 
had reduced millions of people to wretchedness. 
He believed that it was now exercising a corrupt 
influence in Parliament itself. He had no 
sympathy with the men who had overthrown the 
native governments in India and had established 
in their stead an irresponsible system of tpanny. 
In 1785 he gave expression to some of his indigna¬ 
tion and wrath at the condition of affairs in India 
in his Speech on the Nabob of ArcoVs Debts, For 
the policy of Warren Hastings, Governor General 


18 


INTRODUCTION 


of India, Burke entertained feelings of positive 
horror, and in 1786 articles prepared by Burke 
impeaching Hastings of high crimes and mis¬ 
demeanors were presented to the House of Com¬ 
mons. The trial of Hastings began in 1788, 
Burke making the greatest speech of his life at 
the opening {The Impeachment of Warren 
Hastings). The case was not finally concluded 
until 1795, when Hastings was acquitted. The 
trial had, however, convinced the nation of the 
need of reform in the government of India, and to 
Burke’s unsuccessful attack on Hastings must be 
attributed the improvement that followed in the 
government of India. 

The French Revolution was the occasion of 
Burke’s sepai’ating from his 'former Whig associ¬ 
ates. Burke, always a conservative, had now 
become much more conservative than his party. 
The Whigs very generally applauded the Revolu¬ 
tion in France, and at one time there was some 
danger of a sympathetic outbreak in England. 
Burke, however, saw in the Revolution nothing 
but destruction. He believed it to be thp work of 
atheists and theorists who were waging relentless 
war upon the institutions which, he thought, pre¬ 
serve order in society,—^upon King, Nobles, and 
Clergy. It was charged against him that he had 
lost his sympathy for the people; that he thought 
only of preserving the privileges of the ruling 
classes. For the common people of France, who 


A BRIEF BIBLIOaRAPHY 


John Morley. Burke (in the English Men of Letters 
Series). This is the standard biogri^phy of Burke. 

J OHN Morley. Burke (in the Encyclopcedia Britannica ). 
John Morley. Burke: An Historical Study. This 
work deals with Burke’s political side alone. 

Leslie Stephen. History of English Thought in the 
Eighteenth Century, volume ii. Burke’s political 
theories are carefully set forth in their historical 
relationships. 

Dictionary of National Biography. Burke. A 
valuable bibliography is attached to the biography. 
Augustine Birrell. Burke (in Obiter Dicta, second 
series). 

Woodrow Wilson. The Interpreter of English Liberty 
(in Mere Literature). A suggestive and entertaining 
essay. For bibliography of other essays on Burke 
consult Poole’s Index. yC 

/ ^ 

The principal events of the controversy with which 
the Speech on Conciliation is concerned are summed up 
in every good history of the United States (Fiske, An¬ 
drews, Johnston). They are treated more at length in 
the following: 

W. H. Lecky. History of England in the Eighteenth 


Century. 

George Bancroft. A History of the United States. 
Hosmer. Samuel Adams (in the American Statesmen 
Series). 

J. R. Green. A Short History of the English People. 

21 




In the common principles of all social and civil order, 
Burke is unquestionably our best and wisest teacher. 
In handling the particular questions of his time he 
always involves those principles, and brings them to 
their practical bearings, where they most “come home 
to the business and bosoms of men.” And his pages 
are everywhere bright with the highest and purest 
political morality, while at the same time he is a con¬ 
summate master in the intellectual charms and graces 
of authorship.—-iJadso?!, 


SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH 
AMERICA 


\ 




Perhaps the greatest speech Burke ever made was 
that on Conciliation with America; the wisest in its 
temper, the most closely logical in its reasoning, the 
amplest in appropriate topics, the most generous and 
conciliatory in the substance of its appeals,— Morley. 


SPEECH 

ON 

. MOVING HIS RESOLUTIONS 

FOR 

CONCILIATION WITH THE COLONIES, 

MARCH 22, 1775. 


[1] I hope, Sir, that, notwithstanding the austerity 
of the Chair, your good-nature will incline you to 
some degree of indulgence towards human frailty. 
You will not think it unnatural, that those who 
have an object depending, which strongly engages 
their hopes and fears, should be somewhat inclined 
to superstition. As I came into the House full of 
anxiety about the event of my motion, I found, to 
my infinite surprise, that the grand penal hill, by 
which we had passed sentence on the trade and 
sustenance of America, is to be returned to us from 
the other House. I do confess, I could not help 
looking on this event as a fortunate omen. I look 
upon it as a sort of providential favour; by which 
we are put once more in possession of our delibera¬ 
tive capacity, upon a business so very questionable 
in its nature, so very uncertain in its issue. By 
the return of this bill, which seemed to have taken 



26 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


its flight for ever, we are at this very instant nearly 
as free to choose a plan for our American govern¬ 
ment as we were on the first day of the session. 
If, Sir, we incline to the side of conciliation, we 
are not at all embarrassed (unless we please to 
make ourselves so) by any incongruous mixture of 
coercion and restraint. We are therefore called 
upon, as it were, by a superior warning voice, 
again to attend to America; to attend to the whole 
of it together; and to review the subject with an 
unusual degree of care and calmness. 

[2] Surely it is an awful subject; or there is none so 
on this side of the grave. When I first had the 
honour of a seat in this House, the affairs of that 
continent pressed themselves upon us, as the most 
important and most delicate object of parlia¬ 
mentary attention. My little share in this gi’eat 
deliberation oppressed me. I found myself a par¬ 
taker in a very high trust; and having no sort 
of reason to rely on the strength of my natural 
abilities for the proper execution of that trust, 
I was obliged to take more than common pains 
to instruct myself in everything which relates 
to our colonies. I was not less under the necessity 
of forming some fixed ideas concerning the 
general policy of the British empire. Some¬ 
thing of this sort seemed to be indispensable; in 
order, amidst so vast a fluctuation of passions and 
opinions, to concentre my thoughts; to ballast my 
conduct; to preserve me from being blown about 



BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 27 


by every wind of fashionable doctrine. I really 
did not think it safe, or manly, to have fresh prin¬ 
ciples to seek upon every fresh mail which should 
arrive from America. 

[3] At that period I had the fortune to find myself 
in perfect concurrence with a large majority in 
this House. Bowing under that high authority, 
and penetrated with the sharpness and strength of 
that early impression, I have continued ever since, 
without the least deviation, in my original senti¬ 
ments. Whether this be owing to an obstinate per¬ 
severance in error, or to a religious adherence to 
what appears to me truth and reason, it is in your 
equity to judge. 

[4] Sir, Parliament, having an enlarged view of 
objects, made, during this interval, more frequent 
changes in their sentiments and their conduct, 
than could be justified in a particular person upon 
the contracted scale of private information. But 
though I do not hazard anything approaching to 
censure on the motives of former parliaments to 
all those alterations, one fact is undoubted,—that 
under them the state of America has been kept in 
continual agitation. Everything administered as 
remedy to the public complaint, if it did not 
produce, was at least followed by, an heightening 
of the distemper; until, by a variety of experiments, 
that important country has been brought into her 
present situation;—a situation which I will not 
miscall, which I dare not name; which I scarcely 


28 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


know how to comprehend in the terms of any 
description. 

[5] In this posture, Sir, things stood at the begin- 
ning of the session. About that time, a worthy 
member of great parliamentary experience, who, 
in the year 1766, filled the chair of the American I 
committee with much ability, took me aside; and, 
lamenting the present aspect of our politics, told 
me, things were come to such a pass, that our 
former methods of proceeding in the House would 
be no longer tolerated./ That the public tribunal 
(never too indulgent to a long and unsuccessful 
opposition) would now scrutinize our conduct with 
unusual severity. That the very vicissitudes and 
shillings of ministerial measures, instead of convict¬ 
ing their authors of inconstancy and want of 
system, would be taken as an occasion of charging 
us with a predetermined discontent, which nothing 
could satisfy; whilst we accused every measure of 
vigour as cruel, and every proposal of lenity as 
weak and irresolute. The public, he said, would 
not have patience to see us play the game out witli 
our adversaries: we must produce our hand. It 
would be expected, that those who for many years 
had been active in such affairs should show, that 
they had formed some clear and decided idea of 
the principles of colony government; and were 
capable of drawing out something like a platform 
of the ground which might be laid for future and 
permanent tranquillity. 



BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 29 


[6] I felt the truth of what my honourable friend 
represented; but I felt my situation, too. His 
application might have been made with far greater 
propriety to many other gentlemen. No man was 
indeed ever better disposed, or worse qualified, for 
such an undertaking, than myself. Though I 
gave so fai’ in to his opinion, that I immediately 
threw my thoughts into a sort of parliamentai'y 
form, I was by no means equally ready to produce 
them. It generally argues some degree of natm’al 
impotence of mind, or some want of knowledge of 
the world, to hazard plans of government except 
from a seat of authority. Propositions are made, 
not only ineffectually, but somewhat disreputably, 
when the minds of men are not properly disposed 
for their reception; and for my part, I am not 
ambitious of ridicule; not absolutely a candidate 
for disgrace. 

[7] Besides, Sir, to speak the plain truth, I have in 
general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of 
paper government; nor of any politics in which 
the plan is to be wholly separated from the execu¬ 
tion. But when I saw that anger and violence 
prevailed every day more and more; and that 
things were hastening towards an incurable aliena¬ 
tion of our colonies; I confess my caution gave 
way. I felt this, as one of those few moments in 
which decorum yields to a higher duty. Public 
calamity is a mighty leveller; and there are 
occasions when any, eteh the slightest, chance of 


30 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


doing good, must be laid hold on, even by the 
most inconsiderable person. 



8] To restore order and repose to an empire so great 
and so distracted as ours, is, merely in the attempt, 
an undertaking that would ennoble the flights of 
the highest genius, and obtain pardon for the 
efforts of the meanest understanding. Struggling 
a good while with these thoughts, by degrees I 
felt myself more Arm. I derived, at length, some 
confidence from what in other circumstances 
usually produces timidity. I grew less anxious, 
even from the idea of my own insignificance. 
For, judging of what you are by what you ought 
to be, I persuaded myself that you would not 
reject a reasonable proposition because it had noth¬ 
ing but its reason to recommend it. On the other 
hand, being totally destitute of all shadow of influ¬ 
ence, natural or adventitious, I was very sure, that, 
if my proposition were futile or dangerous; if it 
were weakly conceived, or improperly timed, there 
was nothing exterior to it, of power to awe, dazzle, 
or delude you. You will see it just as it is: and 
you will treat it just as it deserves. 



►] The proposition is peace. Not peace through 
the medium of war; not peace to be hunted 
through the labyrinth of intricate and endless 
negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal 
discord, fomented from principle, in all parts of 
the empire; not peace to depend on the juridical 
determination of perplexing questions, or the 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 31 


precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a com¬ 
plex government. It is simple peace; sought in 
its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts.—It 
is peace sought in the spirit of peace; and laid in 
principles purely pacific. I propose, by removing 
the ground of the difference, and by restoring the 
former unsuspecting confidence of the colonies in 
the mother country^ to give permanent satisfaction 
to your people; and (far from a scheme of ruling 
by discord) to reconcile them to each other in the 
same act, and by the bond of the very same inter¬ 
est which reconciles them to British government. 

[ 10 ] My idea is nothing more. Refined policy ever 
has been the parent of confusion; and ever will be 
so, as long as the world endures. Plain good 
intention, which is as easily discovered at the first 
view, as fraud is surely detected at last, is, let me 
say, of no mean force in the government of man¬ 
kind. Genuine simplicity of heart is an healing 
and cementing principle. My plan, therefore, 
being formed upon the most simple grounds imagi¬ 
nable, may disappoint some people, when they 
hear it. It has nothing to recommend it to the 
pruriency of curious ears. There is nothing at all 
. , new and captivating in it. It has nothing of the 
splendour of the project, which has been lately laid 
upon your table by the noble lord in the blue 
riband. It does not propose to fill your lobby 
with squabbling colony agents, who will require 
the interposition of your mace, at every instant, to 


32 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


keep the peace amongst them. It does not insti¬ 
tute a magnificent auction of finance, where capti¬ 
vated provinces come to general ransom by bidding 
against each other, until you knock down the ham¬ 
mer, and determine a proportion of paymentsbeyond 
all the powers of algebra to equalize and settle. 

[11] The plan which I shall presume to suggest, 
derives, however, one gi’eat advantage from the 
proposition and registry of that noble lord’s pro¬ 
ject. The idea of conciliation is admissible. 
First, the House, in accepting the resolution moved 
by the noble lord, has admitted, notwithstanding 
the menacing front of our address, notwithstand¬ 
ing our heavy bills of pains and penalties—that we 
do not think ourselves precluded from all ideas of 
free grace and bounty. 

[12] The House has gone further; it has declared 
conciliation admissible, 'previous to any submission 
on the part of America. It has even shot a good 
deal beyond that mai’k, and has admitted, that the 
complaints of our former mode of exerting the right 
of taxation were not wholly unfounded. That 
right thus exerted is allowed to have had something 
reprehensible in it; something unwise, or something- 
grievous; since, in the midst of our heat and resent-- 
ment, we, of ourselves, have proposed a capital altera¬ 
tion ; and, in order to get rid of what seemed so very 
exceptionable, have instituted a mode that is alto¬ 
gether new; one that is, indeed, wholly alien from 
all the ancient methods and forms of parliament. 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 33 


[13] The principle of this proceeding is large enough 
for my purpose. The means proposed by the 
noble lord for carrying his ideas into execution, I 
think, indeed, are very indifferently suited to the 
end; and this I shall endeavour to show you before 
I sit down. But, for the present, I take my 
ground on the admitted principle. I mean to give 
peace. Peace implies reconciliation; and, where 
there has been a material dispute, reconciliation 
does in a manner always imply concession on the 
one part or on the other. In this state of things 
I make no difficulty in affirming that the proposal 
ought to originate from us. Great and acknowl¬ 
edged force is not impaired, either in effect or in 
opinion, by an unwillingness to'exert itself. The 
superior power may offer peace with honour and 
with safety. Such an offer from such a power will 
be attributed to magnanimity. But the concessions 
of the weak are the concessions of fear. When 
such a one is disarmed, he is wholly at the mercy 
of his superior; and he loses for ever that time and 
those chances, which, as they happen to all men, 
are the strength and resources of all inferior power. 

[14] The capital leading questi^n^n which you must 
this day decide, are thesatwoifPirst, whether you 
ought to concede ^ *!^d Jeconffi^^^what your con¬ 
cession ought to be.J) On the first of these ques¬ 
tions we have gain^ (as I have just taken the 
liberty of observing to you) some ground. But I 
am sensible that a good deal more is still to be done. 


34 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


Indeed, Sir, to enable us to determine both on the 
one and the other of these great questions with a 
firm and precise judgment, I think it may be 
necessary to consider distinctly the true nature and 
the peculiar circumstances of the object which we 
have before us. Because after all our struggle, 
whether we will or not, we must govern America 
according to that nature, and to those circum¬ 
stances; and not according to our own imagina¬ 
tions ; nor according to abstract ideas of right; by 
no means according to mere general theories of 
government, the resort to which appears to me, in 
, our present situation, no better than arrant trifling. 

^ I shall therefore endeavour, with your leave, to lay 
before you some of the most material of these 




circumstances in as full and as clear 
am able to state them. 


manner as I 


[15] The first thing that we have to consider with 
regard to the nature of the object is—the number 
of people in the colonies. I have taken for some 
years a good deal of pains on that point. I can by 
no calculation justify myself in placing the number 
below two millions of inhabitants of our own 
European blood and colour; besides at least 500,- 
000 others, who form no inconsiderable part of the 
^ strength and opulence of the whole. This, Sir, is, 
I believe, about the true number. There is no 
occasion to exaggerate, where plain truth is of so 
much weight and importance. But whether I put 
the present numbers too high or too low, is a mat- 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 35 


ter of little moment. Such is the strength with 
which population shoots in that part of the world, 
that state the numbers as high as we will, whilst 
the dispute continues, the exaggeration ends. 
Whilst we are discussing any given magnitude, 
they are grown to it. . Whilst we spend our time 
in deliberating on the mode of governing two 
millions, we shall find we have millions more to 
manage. Your children do not grow faster from 
infancy to manhood than they spread from families 
to communities, and from villages to nations. 

[ 16 ] I put this consideration of the present and the 
growing numbers in the front of our deliberation; 
because. Sir, this consideration will make it evi¬ 
dent to a blunter discernment than yours, that no 
partial, narrow, contracted, pinched, occasional 
system will be at all suitable to such an object. It 
will show you, that it is not to be considered as 
one of those minwm which are out of the eye and 
consideration of the law; not a paltry excrescence 
of the state; not a mean dependent, who may be 
neglected with little damage, and provokea with 
little danger. It will prove that some degree of 
care and caution is required in the handling such 
an object; it will show that you ought not, in 
reason, to trifle with so large a mass of the inter¬ 
ests and feelings of the human race. You could at 
no time do so without guilt; and be assured you will 
not be able to do it long with impunity. 

[IT] But the population of this country, the great and 


36 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


growing population, though a very important con¬ 
sideration, will lose much of its weight, if not com¬ 
bined with other chcumstances. The commerce of 
your colonies is out of all proportion beyond the 
numbers of the people. This ground of their 
commerce indeed has been trod some days ago, 
and with great ability, by a distinguished person, 
at your bar. This gentleman, after thirty-five 
years—it is so long since he first appeared at the 
same place to plead for the commerce of Great 
Britain—has come again before you to plead the 
same cause, without any other 



^ that to the fire of imagination 


tion, which even then marked him as one of the 
• first literary characters of his age, he has added a 
consummate knowledge in the commercial interest 
of his country, formed by a long course of enlight¬ 
ened and discriminating experience. 

[18] Sir, I should be inexcusable in coming after such 
a person with any detail, if a great part of the 
members who now fill the House had not the mis¬ 
fortune to be absent when he appeared at your bar. 
Besides, Sir, I propose to take the matter at periods 
of time somewhat different from his. There is, if 
I mistake not, a point of view, from whence, if you 
will look at this subject, it is impossible that it 
should not make an impression upon you. 

[19] I have in my hand two accojints; one a com¬ 
parative state of the export trade of England to its 
colonies, as it stood in the year 1704, and as it 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 37 


stood in the year 1772. The other a state of the 
export trade of this country to its colonies alone, as 
it stood in 1772, compared with the whole trade 
of England to all parts of the world (the colonies 
included) in the year 1704. They are from good 
vouchers; the latter period from the accounts on 
your table, the earlier from an original manuscript 
of Davenant, who first established the inspector- 
general’s ofiftce, which has been ever since his time 
so abundant a source of parliamentary information. 

[20] The export trade to the colonies consists of three 
great branches. The African, which, terminating 
almost wholly in the colonies, must be put to the 
account of their commerce; the West Indian; and 
the North American. All these are so interwoven, 
that the attempt to separate them, would tear to 
pieces the contexture of the whole; and if not 
entirely destroy, would very much depreciate the 
value of all the parts. I therefore consider these 
three denominations to be, what in effect they are, 
^ one trade. 

[31] The trade to the colonies, taken on the export 
side, at the beginning of this century, that is, in 
the year 1704, stood thus: 

Exports to North America, and 
the West Indies, .... £483,265 

To Africa, . 86,665 

£569,930 
- *■ 5 '! 





3$ BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


[22] In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year 
between the highest and lowest of those lately laid 
on your table, the account was as follows: 

To North America, and the West 

Indies,.£4,791,734 

To Africa,. 866,398 

To which, if you add the export 
trade from Scotland, which had 
in 1704 no existence, . . . 364,000 


£6,022,132 


[23] From five hundred and odd thousand, it has 
grown to six millions. It has increased no less 
than twelve-fold. This is the state of the colony 
trade, as compared with itself at these two periods, 
within this century;—and this is matter for medi¬ 
tation. But this is not all. Examine my second 
account. See how the export trade to the colonies 
alone in 1772 stood in the other point of view, that 
is, as compared to the whole trade of England in 
1704. 

The whole export trade of Eng¬ 
land, including that to the col¬ 
onies, in 1704,.£6,509,000 

Export to the colonies alone, in 
1772,. 6,024,000 


Difference, £ 485,000 









BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 39 


f24] The trade with America alone is now within less 
than £500,000 of being equal to what this great 
commercial nation, England, carried on at the 
beginning of this century with the whole world! 
If I had taken the largest year of those on your 
table, it would rather have exceeded. But, it will 
be said, is not this American trade an unnatural 
protuberance, that has drawn the juices from the 
rest of the body? The reverse. It is the very 
food that has nourished every other part into its 
present magnitude. Our general trade has been 
greatly augmented, and augmented more or less in 
almost every part to which it ever extended; but 
with this material difference, that of the six mil¬ 
lions which in the beginning of the century consti¬ 
tuted the whole mass of our export commerce, the* 
colony trade was but one-twelfth part; it is now 
(as a part of sixteen millions) considerably more 
than a third of the whole. This is the relative 
proportion of the importance of the colonies at 
these two periods: and all reasoning concerning 
our mode of treating them must have this propor¬ 
tion as its basis, or it is a reasoning weak, rotten, 

-'y 'and sophistical; 

[25] \ Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to 
hurry over this great consideration^ It is good 
for us to be here! We stand where we have 
an immense view of what is, and what is past*. 
Clouds, indeed, and darkness rest upon the futuref 
Let us, however, before we descend from this noble 


40 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


eminence, reflect that this growth of our national 
prosperity has happened within the short period of 
the life of man. It has happened within sixty- 
eight years. There are those alive whose memory 
might touch the two extremities. For instance, my 
Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages of 
the progress. He was in 1704 of an age at least 
to be made to comprehend such things. He was 
then old enough acta par entum jam leg ere ^ et qum 
sit poterit cognoscere virtus^ —Suppose, Sir, that 
the angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the 
many virtues, which made him one of the most 
amiable, as he is one of the most fortunate, men of 
his age, had opened to him in vision, that when, in 
the fourth generation, the third prince of the 
House of Brunswick had sat twelve years on the 
throne of that nation, which (by the happy issue 
of moderate and healing councils) was to be made 
Great Britain, he should see his son. Lord Chancel¬ 
lor of England, turn back the current of hereditary 
dignity to its fountain, and raise him to a higher 
rank of peerage, whilst he enriched the family 
with a new one—If amidst these bright and happy 
scenes of domestic honour and prosperity, that 
angel should have drawn up the curtain, and 
unfolded the rising glories of his country, and 
whilst he was gazing with admiration on the then 

1 To read about the deeds of his forefathers and to 
comprehend what manliness is.—Adapted from Vergil, 
Eclogues, IV, 26, 27, 



BUKKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 41 


commercial grandeur of England, the genius should 
point out to him a little speck, scarce visible in the 
mass of the national interest, a small seminal prin¬ 
ciple, rather than a formed body, and should tell 
him—‘‘Young man, there is America—^which at 
this day serves for little more than to amuse you 
with stories of savage men, and uncouth manners; 
yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal 
to the whole of that commerce which now attracts 
the envy of the world. Whatever England has 
been growing to by a progressive increase of 
improvement, brought in by varieties of people, 
by succession of civilizing conquests and civilizing 
settlements in a series of seventeen hundred years, 
you shall see as much added to her by America in 
the course of a single life!” If this state of his 
country had been foretold to him, would it not 
require all the sanguine credulity of youth, and all 
the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to make him 
believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to see it! 
Fortunate indeed, if'he lives to see nothing that 
shall vaiy the prospect, and cloud the setting of 
his day! 

[26] Excuse, me. Sir, if turning from such thoughts 
I resume this comparative view once more. You 
have seen it on a large scale; look at it on a small 
one. I will point out to your attention a particu¬ 
lar instance of it in the single province of Pennsyl¬ 
vania. In the year 1704, that province called for 
£11,459 in value of your commodities, native and 


42 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


foreign. This was the whole. What did it 
demand in 1772? Why, nearly fifty times as much; 
for in that year the export to Pennsylvania was 
£507,909, neai’ly equal to the export to all the 
colonies together in the first period. 

[27] I choose. Sir, to enter into these minute and 
particular details because generalities, which in all 
other cases are apt to heighten and raise the sub¬ 
ject, have here a tendency to sink it. When we 
speak of the commerce w'ith our colonies, fiction 
lags after truth; invention is unfruitful, and 
imagination cold and barren. 

[28] So far. Sir, as to the importance of the object 
in view of its commerce, as concerned in the 
exports from England. If I were to detail the 
imports, I could show how many enjoyments they 
procure, which deceive the burthen of life; how 
many materials which invigorate the springs of 
national industry, and extend and animate every 
part of our foreign and domestic commerce. This 
would be a curious subject indeed—but I must 
prescribe bounds to myself in a matter so vast and 
various. 

[29] I pass therefore to the colonies in another point 
of view, their agriculture. This they have prose¬ 
cuted with such a spirit, that, besides feeding 
plentifully their own growing multitude, their 
annual export of grain, comprehending rice, has 
some years ago exceeded a million in value. Of 
their last harvest, I am persuaded they will export 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 43 


much more. At the beginning of the century 
some of these colonies imported corn from the 
mother country. Por some time past, the Old 
World has been fed from the New. The scarcity 
which you have felt would have been a desolating 
famine, if this child of your old age, with a true 
Xfilial piety, with a Roman charity, had not put the 
full breast of its youthful exuberance to the mouth 
of its exhausted parent, 

[30] As to the wealth which the colonies have di’awn 
from the sea by their fisheries, you had all that 
matter fully opened at your bar. You surely 
thought these acquisitions of value, for they 
seemed even to excite your envy; and yet the 
spirit by which that enterprising employment has 
been exercised, ought rather, in my opinion, to 
have raised your esteem and admiration. And pray, 
Sir, what in the world is equal to it? Pass by the 
other parts, and look at the manner in which the 
people of Jsew England have of late carried on 
the whale fishery. Whilst we follow them among 
the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them 
penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of 
Hudson’s Bay and Davis’s Straits, whilst we are 
looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear 
that they have pierced into the opposite region of ^ 
polar cold, that they are at the antipodes, and 
engaged under the frozen serpent of the south. 
Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and 
romantic an object for the grasp of national ambi • 




44 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


tion, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress 
their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial)( 
heat more discouraging to them, than the accumu¬ 
lated winter of both the poles. We know that 
whilst some of them draw the line and strike the 
harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the 
longitude, and pursue their gigantic game along 
the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is vexed by 
their fisheries. No climate that is not witness to 
their toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland, 
nor the ^tivity of France, nor the dexterous and 
firm sag^ity of English enterprise, ever carried 
this most perilous mode of hard industry to the 
extent to which it has been pushed by this recent 
people; a people who are still, as it were, but in 
the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of 
manhood. When I contemplate these things; 
when I know that the colonies in general owe little 
or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are 
• not squeezed into this happy form by the con¬ 
straints of watchful and suspicious government, 
but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a 
generous nature has been suffered to take her own 
way to perfection; when I reflect upon these 
effects, when I see how profitable they have been 
to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all 
presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances 
melt and die away within me. My rigour relents. 

I pardon something to the spirit of liberty. 

[31] I am sensible. Sir, that all which I have asserted 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 45 


in my detail, is admitted in the gross; but that 
quite a different conclusion is drawn from it. 
America, gentlemen say, is a noble object. It is 
an object well worth fighting for. Certainly it is, 
if fighting a people be the best way of gaining them. 
Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their choice 
of means by their complexions and their habits. 
Those who understand the military art, will of 
course have some predil&tion for it. Those who 
wield the thunder of the state, may have more 
confidence in the efficacy of arms. But I confess, ^ 
possibly for want of this knowledge, my opinion is 
much more in favour of prudent management, than 
of force; considering force not as an odious, but 
a feeble instrument, for preserving a people so 
numerous, so active, so growing, so spirited as 
this, in a profitable and subordinate connexion 
mth os. 

[32] First, Sir, permit me to observe, that the use of 
force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for ' 
a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of 
subduing again: and a nation is not governed, 
which is perpetually to be conquered. 

[33] My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is 
not always the effect of force; and an armament 
is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are 
without resource; for, conciliation failing, force 
remains; but, force failing, no further hope of 
reconciliation is left. Power and authority are 
sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never 


46 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated 

^ violence. 

[34] A further objection to force is, that you impair 
the object by your very endeavours to preserve it. 
The thing you fought for is not the thing which 
you recover; but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and 
consumed in the contest. Nothing less will con¬ 
tent me, than whole America. I do not choose to 
consume its strength along with our own; because 
in all parts it is the British strength that I con¬ 
sume. I do not choose to be caught by a foreign 
enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict; and 
still less in the midst of it. I may escape; but I 
can make no insiu’ance against such an event. Let 
me add, that I do not choose wholly to break the 
American spirit; because it is the spirit that has 
made the country. 

[35] Lastly, we have no sort of experience in favour of 
force as an instrument in the rule of our colonies. 
Their growth and their utility has been owing to 
methods altogether different. Our ancient indul¬ 
gence has been said to be pursued to a fault. It 
may be so. But we know if feeling is evidence, 
that our fault was more tolerable than our attempt 
to mend it; and our sin far more salutary than our 

\ penitence. 


[3^ These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining 
that high opinion of untried force, by which many 
gentlemen, for whose sentiments in other particu¬ 
lars I have great respect, seem to be so greatly 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 47 


captivated. But there is still behind a third con¬ 
sideration concerning this object, which serves to 
determine my opinion on the sort of policy which 
ought to be pursued in the management of iVmerica, 
even more than its population and its commerce. 
I mean its temper and character. . V . . 

[3^1 In this character of the Americans, a love_of 
freedom is the predominating feature which marks 
and distinguishes the whole: and as an ardent is 
always a jealous affection, your colonies become 
suspicious, restive, and untractable, whenever they 
see the least attempt to widest from them by force, 
or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think 
the only advantage worth living for. This fierce 
spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies 
probably than in any other people of the earth; and 
this from a great variety of powerful causes; 
which, to understand the true temper of their 
minds, and the direction which this spirit takes, it 
will not be amiss to lay open somewhat more 
largely. 

[38] First, the people of the colonies are descendants 
of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation, which 
still I hope respects, and formerly adored, her 
freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when 
this pai’t of your character was most predominant; 
and they took this bias and direction the moment 
they parted from your hands. They are therefore 
not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty accord¬ 
ing to English ideas, and on English principles. 



48 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


Absti’acfc liberty, like other mere abstractions, is 
not to be found. Liberty inheres in some sensible 
object; and every nation has formed to itself some 
favourite point, which by way of eminence becomes 
the criterion of their happiness. It happened, you 
know. Sir, that the great contests for freedom in 
this country were from the earliest times chiefly 
upon the question of taxing. Most of the contests 
in the ancient commonwealths turned primarily on 
the right of election of magistrates; or on the bal¬ 
ance among the several orders of the state. The 
question of money was not with them so imme¬ 
diate. But in England it was otherwise. On this 
point of taxes the ablest pens, and most eloquent 
tongues, have been exercised; the greatest spirits 
have acted and suffered. In order to give the full¬ 
est satisfaction concerning the importance of this 
point, it was not only necessary for those who in 
argument defended the excellence of the English 
constitution, to insist on this privilege of granting 
money as a dry point of fact, and to prove, that 
the right had been acknowledged in ancient 
parchments, and blind usages, to reside in a certain 
body called a House of Commons. They went 
much farther; they attempted to prove, and they 
succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from 
the particular nature of a House of Commons, as an 
immediate representative of the people; whether 
the old records had delivered this ora 61 e or not. 
They took infinite pains to inculcate, as a funda- 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 49 


mental principle, that in all monarchies the people 
must in effect themselves, mediately or immedi¬ 
ately, possess the power of granting their own 
money, or no shadow of liberty could subsist. 
The colonies draw from you, as with their life¬ 
blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of 
liberty, as with you, fixed and attached on this 
specific point of taxing. Liberty might be safe, or 
might be endangered, in twenty other particulars, 
without their being much pleased or alarmed. 
Here they felt its pulse; and as they found that 
beat, they thought themselves sick or sound. I 
do not say whether they were right or wrong in 
applying your general arguments to their own case. 
It is not easy indeed to make a monopoly of 
theorems and corollaries. The fact is, that they 
did thus apply those general arguments; and your 
mode of governing them, whether through lenity 
or indolence, tlirough wisdom or mistake, con¬ 
firmed them in the imagination, that they, as well 
as you, had an interest in these common principles. 

[39] They were further confirmed in this pleasing 
error by the form of their provincial legislative 
assemblies. Their governments are popular in a 
high degree; some are merely popular; in all the 
popular representative is the most weighty; and 
this share of the people in their ordinary government 
never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, 
and with a strong aversion from whatever tends to 
deprive them of their chief importance. 


50 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 

V 

[ 40 ] If anything were wanting to this necessary opera¬ 
tion of the form of government, religion would 
have given it a complete effect. Religion, always 
a principle of energy, in this new people is no way 
worn out or impaired; and their mode of professing 
it is also one main cause of this free spirit. The 
people are Protestants; of that kind which is 
^ the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind 
and opinion. This is a persuasion not only favour¬ 
able to liberty, but built upon it. I do not think, 
Sir, that the reason of this averseness in the dis¬ 
senting churches, from all that looks like absolute 
government, is so much to be sought in their reli¬ 
gious tenets, as in their history. Every one knows 
that the Roman Catholic religion is at least coeval 
with most of the governments where it prevails; 
that it has generally gone hand in hand with them, 
and received great favour and every kind of sup¬ 
port from authority. The Church of England too 
was formed from her cradle under the nursing care 
of regular government. But the dissenting inter¬ 
ests have sprung up in direct opposition to all the 
ordinary powers of the world; and could justify 
that opposition only on a strong claim to natural 
liberty. Their very existence depended on the 
^powerful and unremitted assertion of that claim. 
/-All Protestantismj^ even the most cold and passive, 
is a sort of dissei^ But the religion most prev¬ 
alent in our nortEern colonies is a refinement on 
the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 51 


dissent, and tne Protestantism of the Protestant 
religion. This religion, under a variety of denomi¬ 
nations agreeing in nothing but in the communion 
of the spirit of liberty, is predominant in most of 
the northern provinces; where the Church of Eng¬ 
land, notwithstanding its legal rights, is in reality 
no more than a sort of private sect, not composing 
most probably the tenth of the people. The 
colonists left England when this spirit was high, 
and in the emigrants was the highest of all; and 
even that stream of foreigners, which has been 
constantly flowing into these colonies, has, for the 
greatest part, been composed of dissenters from the 
establishments of their several countries, and have 
brought with them a temper and character far 
from alien to that of the people with whom they 
mixed. 

[41] Sir, I can perceive by their manner, that some 
gentlemen object to the latitude of this descrip¬ 
tion ; because in the southern colonies the Church 
of England forms a large body, and has a regular 
establishment. It is certainly true. There is, 
however, a circumstance attending these colonies, 
which, in my opinion, fully counterbalances this 
difference, and makes the spirit of liberty still more 
high and haughty than in those to the northward. 
It is, that in Virginia and the Carolinas they have 
a vast multitude of slaves. Where this is the case 
in any part of the world, those who are free, are 
by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom. 


52 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


Freedom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a 
kind of rank and privilege. Not seeing there, 
that freedom, as in countries where it is a common 
blessing, and as broad and general as the air, may 
be united with much abject toil, with great 
misery, with all the exterior of servitude, liberty 
looks, amongst them, like something that is more 
noble and liberal. I do not mean. Sir, to com¬ 
mend the superior morality of this sentiment, 
which has at least as much pride as virtue in it; 
but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is 
so; and these people of the southern colonies are 
much more strongly, and with a higher and more 
stubborn spirit, attached to liberty, than those to 
the northward. Such were all the ancient com¬ 
monwealths ; such were our Gothic ancestors; 
such in our days were the Poles; and such will be 
all masters of slaves, who ai’enot slaves themselves. 
In such a people, the haughtiness of domination 
combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, 
and renders it invincible. 

[42] Permit me. Sir, to add another circumstance in 
our colonies, which contributes no mean part 
towards the growth and effect of this untractable 
spirit. I mean their education. In no countiy 
perhaps in the world is the law so general a study. 
The profession itself is numerous and powerful; 
and in most provinces it takes the lead. The 
greater number of the deputies sent to the con¬ 
gress were lawyers. But all who read, and most 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 53 


do read, endeavour to obtain some smattering in 
that science. I have been told by an eminent 
bookseller, that in no branch of his business, after 
tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as 
those on the law exported to the plantations. 
The colonists have now fallen into the way of 
printing them for their own use. I hear that they 
have sold nearly as many of Blackstone’s Com¬ 
mentaries in America as in England. General 
Gage marks out this disposition very particularly 
in a letter on your table. He states, that all the 
people in his government are lawyers, or smatterers 
in law; and that in Boston they have been enabled, 
by successful chicle, ^holly to evade many parts 
of one of your capital penal constitutions! The 
smartness of debate will say, that this kilowledge 
ought to teach them more clearly the rights of 
legislature, their obligations to obedience, and the 
penalties of rebellion. All this is mighty well. 

; But my honourable and learned friend on the 
floor, who condescends to mark what I say for 
animadversion, will disdain that ground^ He has 
heard, as well as I, that when great honours and 
great emoluments do not win over this knowledge 
to the service of the state, it is a formidable 
adversary to government. If the spirit be not 
tamed and broken by these happy methods, it is 
stubborn and litigious. Abeunt studia in mores} 

^Pursuits (or studies) pass into character.— Ovid, 
Heroidss, XV, 83. Compare Bacon’s Essay (Of Studies'). 



54 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dex¬ 
terous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of 
resources. In other countries, the people, more 
simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill 
principle in government only by an actual griev¬ 
ance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of 
the pressure of the gidevance by the badness of the 
principle. They au^r misgovernment at a dis¬ 
tance ; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every 

^'>^tainted breeze. 

[ 43 ] The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the 
colonies is hardly less powerful than the rest, as it 
is not merely moral, but laid deep in the natural 
constitution of things. Three thousand miles of 
ocean lie between you and them. No contrivance 
can prevent the effect of this distance in weaken¬ 
ing government. Seas roll, and months pass, 
between the order and the execution; and the want 
of a speedy explanation of a single point is enough 
to defeat a whole system. You have, indeed, 
winged ministers of vengeance, who carry your 
bolts in their pounces to the remotest verge of the 
sea. ^But there a power steps in, that limits the 
. arrogance of raging passions and furious elements, 
and says, “So far shalt thou go, and no farther.” 
Who are you, that should fret and rage, and bite 
the chains of nature?—Nothing worse happens to 
you than does to all nations who have extensive 
empire; and it happens in all the forms into which 
empire can be thrown. In large bodies, the circu- 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 55 


lation of power must be less vigorous at the 
extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk can¬ 
not govern Egypt, and Arabia, and CurdistJm, as 
he governs Thrace; nor has he the same dominion 
in Crimea and Algiers, which he has at Brusa and 
Smyrna. Despotism itself is obliged to truck and 
huckster. The Sultan gets such obedience as he 
can. He governs with a loose rein, that he may 
govern at all; and the whole of the force a^d 
vigour of his authority in his centre is derived from 
a prudent relaxation in all his borders. Spain, in 
her provinces, is, perhaps, not so well obeyed as 
you are in yours. She complies too;^he submits; 
she watches times. This is the immutable condi¬ 
tion, the eternal law, of extensive and detached 
empire. 

[ 44 ] (Then, Sir, from these six capital sources; of 
descent; of form of government; of religion in the 
northern provinces; of manners in the southern; 

1 ^ of education; of the remoteness of situation from 
the first mover of government; from all these 
causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown up.) It 
has grown with the growth of the people in your 
colonies, and increased with the increase of their 
wealth; a spirit, that unhappily meeting with an 
exercise of power in England, which, however law¬ 
ful, is not reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, much 
less with theirs, has kindled this fiame that is ready 
to consume us. 

[45] I do not mean to commend either the spirit in 


56 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 

this excess, or the moral causes which produce it. 
Perhaps a more smooth and accommodating spirit 
of freedom in them would he more acceptable to 
us. Perhaps ideas of liberty might be desired, 
more reconcilable with an arbitrary and boundless 
authority. Perhaps we might wish the colonists to 
be persuaded, that their liberty is more secure 
when held in trust for them by us (as their guard¬ 
ians during a perpetual minority) than with any 
part of it in their own hands. Tim question i s, 
not whether their spirit deserves praise or blame, 
but—^what, in the name of God, shall we do with 
it? You have before you the object, such as it is, 
with all its glories, with all its imperfections on its 
head. You see the magnitude; the importance; 
the temper; the habits; the disorders. By all these 
considerations we are strongly urged to determine 
something concerning it. We are called upon to 
fix some rule and line for our future conduct, 
which may give a little stability to our politics, and 
prevent the return of such unhappy deliberations as 
the present. Every such return will bring the 
matter before us in a still more untractable form. 
For, what astonishing and incredible things have 
we not seen already! What monsters have not 
been generated from this unnatural contention! 
Whilst every principle of authority and resistance 
has been pushed, upon both sides, as far as it 
would go, there is nothing so solid and certain, 
either in reasoning or in practice, that has not 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 67 

been shaken. Until very lately, all authority in 
America seemed to be nothing but an emanation^ 
from yours. Even the popular part of the colony 
constitution derived all its activity, and its first 
vital movement, from the pleasure of the crown. 
^Ye thought, Sir, that the utmost which the dis¬ 
contented colonists could do, was to disturb 
authority; we never dreamt they could of them¬ 
selves supply it; knowing in general what an 
operose business it is to establish a government 
absolutely new. But having, for our purposes in 
this contention, resolved, that none but an obedient 
assembly should sit; the humours of the people 
there, finding all passage through the legal chan¬ 
nel stopped, with great violence broke out another 
way. Some provinces have tried their experi¬ 
ment, as we have tried ours; and theirs has 
succeeded. They have formed a government 
sufficient for its purposes, without the bustle of a 
revolution, or the troublesome formality of an 
election. Evident necessity, and tacit consent, 
have done the business in an instant. So well 
they have done it, that Lord Dunmore (the 
account is among the fragments on your table) 
tells you, that the new institution is infinitely 
better obeyed than the ancient government ever 
was in its most fortunate periods. Obedience is 
what makes government, and not the names by 
which it is called; not the name of governor, as 
formerly, or committee, as at present. This new 


58 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 

government has originated directly from the 
people; and was not transmitted through any of 
the ordinary artificial media of a positive consti¬ 
tution. It was not a manufacture ready formed, and 
transmitted to them in that condition from Eng¬ 
land. The evil arising from hence is this;*that 
the colonists having once found the possibility of 
enjoying the advantages of order in the midst of a 
struggle for liberty, such struggles will not hence¬ 
forward seem so terrible to the settled and sober 
part of mankind as they had appeared before the 
trial. 

[46] Pursuing the same plan of punishing by the 
denial of the exercise of government to still greater 
yf lengths, we wholly abrogated the ancient govern¬ 
ment of Massachusetts. We were confident, that 
the first feeling, if not the very prospect of anarchy, 
would instantly enforce a complete submission. 
The experiment was tried. A new, strange, unex¬ 
pected face of things appeared. Anarchy is found 
tolerable. A vast province has now subsisted, and 
subsisted in a considerable degree of health and 
vigour, for near a twelvemonth, without governor, 
without public council, without judges, without 
executive magistrates. How long it will continue 
in this state, or what may arise out of this unheard- 
y of situation, how can the wisest of us conjecture? 
Our late experience has taught us that many of 
those fundamental principles, formerly believed 
infallible, are either not of the importance they 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 59 


were imagined to be; or that we have not at all 
adverted to some other far more important and far 
more powerful principles, which e^rely overrule 
those we had considered as omnipotent. I am ^ 
much against any further experiments, which tend 
to put to the proof any more of these allowed 
opinions, which contribute so much to the public 
tranquillity. In effect, we suffer as much at home 
by this loosening of all ties, and this condition of 
all established opinions, as we do abroad. For, in 
order to prove that the Americans have no right to 
their liberties, we are every day endeavouring to 
subvert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit 
of our own. To prove that the Americans ought 
not to be free, we are obliged to depreciate the 
value of freedom itself; and we never seem to gain 
a paltry advantage over them in debate, without 
attacking some of those principles, or deriding 
some of those feelings, for which our ancestors have 
shed their blood. ^ 

[47] But, Sir, in wishing to put an en^to pernicious ^ 
experiments, I do not mean to preclude the fullest 
inquiry. Far from it. Far from deciding on a 
sudden or partial view, I would patiently go round 
and round the subject, and survey it minutely in 
every possible aspect. Sir, if I were capable of 
engaging you to an equal attention, I would state, 
that, as far as I am capable of discerning, there 
are but three ways of proceeding relative to this 
stubborn spirit, which prevails in your colonies, 


60 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


and disturbs your government. These are—To 
change that spirit, as inconvenient, by removing 
the causes. To prosecute it as criminal. Or, to 
comply with it as necessary. I would not be guilty 
of an imperfect enumeration; I can think of but 
these three. Another has indeed been started, that 
of giving up the colonies; but it met so slight a 
reception, that I do not think myself obliged to 
dwell a great while upon it. It is nothing but a 
little sally of anger, like the frowardness of peevish 
children, who, when they cannot get all they would 
have, are resolved to take nothing. 

[48J The first of these plans, to change the spirit as 

inconvenient, by removing the causes, I think is the 
most like a systematic proceeding. It is radical in 
its principle; but it is attended with great diffi¬ 
culties, some of them little short, as I conceive, of 
impossibilities. This will appear by examining 
into the plans which have been proposed. 

[ 49 ] As the growing population in the colonies is evi¬ 
dently one cause of their resistance, it was last 
session mentioned in both Houses, by men of 
weight, and received not without applause, that in 
order to check this evil, it would be proper for the 
crown to make no further grants of land. But to 
this scheme there are two objections. The first, 
that there is already so much unsettled land in 
private hands, as to afford room for an immense 
\ future population, although the crown not only 
i withheld its grants, but annihUated its soil. If 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 61 


this be the case, then the only effect of this avarice ^ 
of desolation, this hoarding of a royal wilder¬ 
ness, would be to raise the value of the possessions 
in the hands of the great private monopolists, with¬ 
out any adequate check to the gi’owing and alarm¬ 
ing mischief of population. 

[50J But if you stopped your grants, what would be 

the consequence? The people would occupy 
without grants. They have already so occupied in 
many places. You cannot station garrisons in 
every part of these deserts. If you drive the people 
from one place, they will carry on their annual 
tillage, and remove with their flocks and herds to 
another. Many of the people in the back settle¬ 
ments are already little attached to particular situ¬ 
ations. Already they have topped the Appalachian 
mountains. From thence they behold before them 
an immense plain, one vast, rich, level meadow; a 
square of flve hundred miles. Over this they would 
wander without a possibility of restraint; they 
would change their manners with the habits of 
their life; would soon forget a government by 
which they were disowned; would become hordes 
of English Tartars; and pouring down upon your 
iinfortifled frontiers a fierce and irresistible cavalry, 
become masters of your governors and your coun¬ 
sellors, your collectors^ and comptrollers, and of all 
the slaves that adhbted to them. Such would, 
and, in no long time, must be, the effect of 
attempting to forbid as a crime, and to suppress as 



62 BUEKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


an evil, the command and blessing of Providence, 
“Increase and multiply.” Such would be the 
happy result of an endeavour to keep as a lair of 
wild beasts, that earth, which God, by an express 
charter, has given to the children of men. Far 
different, and surely much wiser, has been our 
policy hitherto. Hitherto we have invited our 
people, by every kind of bounty, to fixed establish¬ 
ments. We have invited the husbandman to look 
to authority for his title. We have taught him 
piously to believe in the mysterious virtue of wax 
and parchment. We have thrown each tract of 
land, as it was peopled, into districts; that the 
ruling power should never be wholly out of sight. 
We have settled all we could; and we have care¬ 
fully attended every settlement with govern¬ 
ment. 

[51] Adhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as 
for the reasons I have just given, I think this new 
project of hedging-in population to be neither pru¬ 
dent nor practicable. 

[52] To impoverish the colonies in general, and in 
particular to arrest the noble course of their marine 
enterprises, would be a more easy task. I freely 
confess it. We have shown a disposition to a 
system of this kind; a disposition even to continue 
the restraint after the offence; looking on ourselves 
as rivals to our colonies, and persuaded that of 
course we must gain all that they shall lose. 
Much mischief we may certainly do. The power 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 63 

inadequate to all other things is often more than 
sufficient for this. I do not look on the direct and 
immediate power of the colonies to resist om* 
violence as very formidable. In this, however, I 
may be mistaken. But when I consider, that we 
have colonies for no purpose hut to be serviceable 
to us, it seems to my poor understanding a little 
preposterous, to make them unserviceable, in order 
to keep them obedient. It is, in truth, nothing 
more than the old, and, as I thought, exploded 
problem of tyranny, which proposes to beggar its 
subjects into submission. But remember, when you 
have completed your system of impoverishment, 
that nature still proceeds in her ordinary course; 
that discontent will increase with misery; and that 
there are critical moments in the fortune of all 
states, when they who are too weak to con¬ 
tribute to your prosperity, may be strong enough 
to complete your ruin. Spoliatis arma super- 
sunt} 

[53] The temper and character which prevail in our 
colonies are, I am afraid, unalterable by any 
human art. We cannot, I fear, falsify the pedi¬ 
gree of this fierce people, and persuade them that 
they are not sprung from a nation in whose veins 
the blood of freedom circulates. The language in 
which they would hear you tell them this tale 
would detect the imposition; your speech would 

^ Those who have been despoiled may still resort to 
ixxms.—Juvenal, Satires, VIII, 124 , 





64 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


betray you. An Englishman is the unfittest per¬ 
son on earth to argue another Englishman into 
slavery. 

[ 54 ] I think it is nearly as little in our power to 
change their republican religion, as their free 
descent; or to substitute the Roman Catholic, as a 
penalty; or the Church of England, as an improve¬ 
ment. The mode of inquisition and dragooning is 
going out of fashion in the Old World; and I 
should not confide much to their efiicacy in the 
New. The education of the Americans is also on 
the same unalterable bottom with their religion. 
You cannot persuade them to burn their books of 
curious science; to banish their lawyers from their 
courts of laws; or to quench the lights of their 
assemblies, by refusing to choose those persons who 
are best read in their privileges. It would be no 
less impracticable to think of wholly annihilating 
the popular assemblies, in which these lawyers sit. 
The army, by which we must govern in their place, 
would be far more chargeable to us; not quite so 
^ effectual; and perhaps, in the end, full as difficult 
to be kept in obedience. 

jo5j With regard to the high aristocratic spirit of 
Virginia and the southern colonies, it has been 
proposed I know to reduce it, by declaring a gen¬ 
eral enfranchisement of their slayes. This project 
^ has had its advocates and panegyrists; yet I never 
could argue myself into any opinion of it. Slaves 
are often much attached to their masters. A 


BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 65 


general wild offer of liberty would riot always be 
accepted. History furnishes few instances of it. 
It is sometimes as hard to persuade slaves to be^ 
tree, as it is to compel fi*eemen to be slaves; and' 
in this auspicious scheme, we should have both 
these pleasing tasks on our hands at once. But 
when we talk of enfi’ancliisement, do we not 
})erceive that the American master may enfranchise 
too; and arm servile hands in defence of freedom? 
A measure to which other people have had recourse 
more than once, and not without success, in a 
desperate situation of their affairs. 

[56] Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and 
dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a 
little suspect the offer of freedom from that very 
nation, which has sold them to their present mas¬ 
ters? from that nation one of whose causes of quar¬ 
rel with those masters is their refusal to deal any 
more in that inhuman traffic? An offer of freedom, 
from England w^ould come rather oddly, shipped 
to them in an African vessel, which is refused an 
entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, 
with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes. 
It would be curious to see the Guinea captain 
attempting at the same instant to publish his 
proclamation of liberty, and to advertise his sale 
of slaves. 

[57] But let us suppose all these moral difficulties 
got over. The ocean remains. You cannot pump 
this dry; and as long as it continues in its present 


66 BURKE^S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


bed, so long all the causes which weaken authority 
by distance Avill continue. 

Ye gods, annihilate hut space and time, 

And make two lovers happy! 

—was a pious and passionate prayer;—but just as 
reasonable, as many of the serious wishes of very 
grave and solemn politicians. 

[58] If then, Sir, it seems almost desperate to think 
of any alterative course, for changing the moral 
causes (and not quite easy to remove the natural) 
which produce prejudices irreconcilable to the late 
exercise of our authority; but that the spirit 
infallibly will continue; and, continuing, will pro¬ 
duce such effects as now embarrass us; the second 
mode under consideration is, to prosecute, that 

\y spirit in its overt acts, as criminal. 

[59] At this proposition I must pause a moment. The 
thing seems a great deal too big for my ideas of 

f juri^rudence. It should seem to my way of con¬ 
ceiving such matters, that there is a very wide 
difference in reason and policy, between the mode 
of proceeding on their regular conduct of scattered 
individuals, or even of bands of men, Avho disturb 
order within the state, and the civil dissensions 
which may, from time to time, on gi’eat questions, 
agitate the several communities which compose a 
great empire. It looks to me to he narrow and 
pedantic, to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal 
justice to this great public contest. I dp not know 







'‘I 


’.j 

■‘ 'i? 



68 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


talk of the privileges of a state, or of a person, who 
has no superior, is hardly any better than speaking 
nonsense. Now, in such unfortunate quarrels 
among the component parts of a great political 
union of communities, I can scarcely conceive any¬ 
thing more completely imprudent, than for the 
head of the empire to insist, that, if any privilege 
is pleaded against his will, or his acts, his whole 
authority is denied; instantly to proclaim rebel¬ 
lion, to beat to arms, and to put the offending prov¬ 
inces under the ban. Will not this. Sir, very soon 
teach the provinces to make no distinctions on 
their part? Will it not teach them that the 
government, against which a claim of liberty is 
^ tantWount to high treason, is a government to 
which submission is equivalent to slavery? It may 
not always be quite convenient to impress depend¬ 
ent communities with such an idea. 

[ 61 ] We are indeed, in all disputes with the colonies, 
by the necessity of things, the judge. It is true, 
Sir. But I confess, that the character of judge in 
my own cause is a thing that fiightens me. 
Instead of filling me with pride, I am exceedingly 
humbled by it. I cannot proceed with a stern, 
assured, judicial confidence, until I find myself in 
something more like a judicial character. I must 
have these hesitations as long as I am compelled to 
recollect, that, in my little reading upon such 
contests as these, the sense of mankind has, at 
least, as often decided against the superior as the 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 69 


subordinate power. Sir, let me add too, that the 
opinion of my having some abstract right in my 
favour, v/ould not put me much at my ease in 
passing sentence; unless I could be sure, that there 
were no rights which, in their exercise under cer¬ 
tain circumstances, were not the most odious of ail 
wrongs, and the most vexatious of all injustice. 
Sir, these considerations have great weight with 
me, when I find things so circumstanced, that I 
see the same party, at once a civil litigant against 
me in point of right, and a culprit before me; while 
I sit as a criminal Judge, on acts of his, whose 
moral quality is to be decided upon the merits of 
that very litigation. Men are every ]iow and then 
put, by the complexity of human affairs, into 
strange situations; but justice is the same, let the 
judge be in what situation he will. 

[ 62 ] There is. Sir, also a circumstance which con¬ 
vinces me, that this mode of criminal proceeding 
is not (at least in the present stage of our contest) 
altogether expedient; which is nothing less than 
the conduct of those very persons wfib have seemed 
to adopt that mode, by lately declaring a rebellion 
in Massachusetts Bay, as they had formerly 
addressed to have traitors brought hither, under an 
act of Henry the Eighth, for trial. For though 
rebellion is declared, it is not proceeded against as 
such; nor have any steps been taken towards the 
apprehension or conviction of any individual 
offender, either on our late or our former address; 






70 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


but modes of public coercion have been adopted, 
and such as have much more resemblance to a sort 
of qualified hostility towai'ds an independent 
power than the punishment of rebellious subjects. 
All this seems rather inconsistent; but it sliows 
how difficult it is to apply these juridical ideas to 
our present case. 

[63] In this situation, let us seriously and coolly 
ponder. What is it we have got by all our 
menaces, which have been many and ferocious? 
What advantage have we derived from the penal 
laws we have passed, and which, for the time, 
have been severe and numerous? What advances 
have we made towards our object, by the sending of a 
force, which, by land and sea, is no contemptible 
strength? Has the disorder abated? Nothing 
less.—When I see things in this situation, after 
such confident hopes, bold promises, and active 
exertions, I cannot, for my life, avoid a suspicion, 
that the plan itself is not correctly right. 

[64] If then the removal of the causes of this spirit of 
American liberty be, for the greater part, or rather 
entirely, impracticable; if the ideas of crimiiial 
process be inapplicable, or if applicable, are in the 
highest degree inexpedient; what way yet remains r 
No way is open, but the third and last—to comply 

' with the American spirit as necessary; or, if you 

^ please, to submit to it as a necessary evil. 

[65] If we ado})t this mode; if we mean to conciliate 
and concede; let us see of what nature the con- 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 71 


cession ought to be: to ascertain the nature of our 
concession, we must look at their complaint. The 
colonies complain, that they have not the char¬ 
acteristic mark and seal of British freedom. They 
complain, that they ai’e taxed in a parliament in 
which they are not represented. If you mean to 
satisfy them at all, you must satisfy them with re¬ 
gard to this complaint. If you mean to please any 
people, you must give them the boon which they 
ask; not what you may think better for them, but 
of a kind totally different. Such an act may be a 
wise regulation, but it is no concession: whereas 
our present theme is the mode of giving satisfaction. 

[66] Sir, I think you must perceive, that I am resolved 
this day to have nothing at all to do with the 
question of the right of taxation. Some gentle¬ 
men startle—but it is true; I put it totally out of 
the question. It is less than nothing in my con¬ 
sideration. I do not indeed wonder, nor will you. 
Sir, that gentlemen of profound learning are fond 
of displaying it on this profound subject. But my 
consideration is narrow, confined, and wholly 
limited to the policy of the question. I do not 
examine, whether the giving away a man’s money 
be a power excepted and reserved out of the gen¬ 
eral trust of goveiyment; and how far all ipankind, 
in all forms of polity, are entitled to an exercise of 
that right by the charter of nature. Or whether, 
on the contrary, a right of taxation is necessarily 
involved in the general principle of legislation, and 


72 BURKE-S SPEECH ON CONCILIATIOxN- 


inseparable from the ordinary supreme power. 
These are deep questions, where great names 
militate against each other; where reason is per¬ 
plexed ; and an appeal to authorities only thickens 
the confusion. For high and reverend authorities 
lift up their heads on both sides; and there is no 
sure footing in the middle. This point is the 

great Serbonian hog, 

Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, 

Where armies whole have sunk. 

I do not intend to be overwhelmed in that bog, 
though in such respectable company. The question 
with me is, not whether you have a right to render 
your people miserable; but whether it is not your 
interest to make them happy. It is not, what a 
lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, rea¬ 
son, and justice tell me I ought to do. Is a politic 
act the worse for being a generous one? Is no con¬ 
cession proper, but that which is made from your 
want of right to keep what you grant? Or does it 
lessen the grace or dignity of relaxing in the exercise' 
of an odious claim, because you have your evidence- 
room full of titles, and your magazines stuffed with 
arms to enforce them? What signify all those 
titles, and all those arms? Of what avail are they, 
when the reason of the thing tells me, that the 
assertion of my title is the loss of my suit; and 
that I could do nothing but wound myself by the 
use of my own weapons? 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 78 


[67] Such is steadfastly my opinion of the absolute 
necessity of keeping up the concord of this empire 
by a unity of spirit, though in a diversity of oper¬ 
ations, that, if I were sure the colonists had, at 
their leaving this country, sealed a regular compact 
of servitude; that they had solemnly abjured all 
the rights of citizens; that they had made a vow to 
renounce all ideas of liberty for them and their 
posterity to ail generations; yet I should hold 
myself obliged to conform to the temper I found 
universally prevalent in my own day, and to govern 
two millions of men, impatient of servitude, on the 
principles of freedom. I am not determining a 
point of law; I am restoring tranquillity; and the 
general character and situation of a people must 
determine what sort of government is fitted for 
them. That point nothing else can or ought to 
determine. 

[68] My idea therefore, without considering whether 
we yield as matter of right, or grant as matter of 
favour, is to admit the people of our colonies into 
an interest in the constitution; and, by recording 
that admission in the journals of parliament, to 
give them as strong an assurance as the nature of 
the thing will admit, that we mean for ever to 
adhere to that solemn declaration of systematic 

ago, the repeal of a revenue act, 
upon its understood principle, might have served 
to show, that we intended an unconditional abate- 


indulgence. 
[69]^ Some years 


74 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


ment of the exercise of a taxing power. Such a 
measure was then sufficient to remove all suspicion, 
and to give perfect content. But unfortunate 
events, since that time, may make something 
further necessary; and not more necessary for 
the satisfaction of the colonies, than for the 
dignity and consistency of our own future pro- 

I ceedings. 

[70] I have taken a very incorrect measure of the dis¬ 
position of the House, if this proposal in itself 
would be received with dislike. I think. Sir, we 
have few American financiers. But our misfortune 
is, we are too acute; we are too exquisite in our 
conjectures of the future, for men oppressed with 
such great and present evils. The more moderate 
among the opposers of parliamentary concession 
freely confess, that they hope no good from taxa¬ 
tion ; but they apprehend the colonists have further 
views; and if this point were conceded, they would 
instantly attack the trade laws. These gentlemen 
are convinced, that this was the intention from the 
beginning; and the quarrel of the Americans with 
taxation was no more than a cloak and cover to this 
design. Such has been the language even of a 
gentleman of real moderation, and of a natural 
temper well adjusted to fair and equal government. 

I am, however. Sir, not a little surprised at this 
kind of discourse, whenever I hear it; and I am 
the more surprised, on account of the arguments 
which I constantly find in company with it, and 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 'J'5 


which are often urged from the same mouths, and 
on the same day. 

For instance, when we allege that it is against 
reason to tax a people under so many restraints in 
trade as the Americans, the noble lord in the blue 
riband shall tell yon, that the restraints on trade 
are futile and useless; of no advantage to us, and 
of no burthen to those on whom they are imposed; 
that the trade to America is not secured by tlie acts 
of navigation, but by the natural and irresistible 
Advantage of a commercial preference. 

[73] Such is the merit of the trade laws in this posture 
of the debate. ‘But when strong internal circum¬ 
stances are urged against the taxes; when the 
scheme is dissected; when experience and the na¬ 
ture of things are brought to prove, and do prove, 
the utter impossibility of obtaining an effective 
revenue from the colonies; w^hen these things ai’e 
pressed, or rather press themselves, so as to drive 
the advocates of colony taxes to a clear admis¬ 
sion of the futility of the scheme; then. Sir, the 
sleeping trade laws revive from their trance; and 
this useless taxation is to be kept sacred, not for its 
own sake, but as a counter-guard and security of 
the laws of trade. 

[73] Then, Sir, you keep up revenue laws whicli 
are mischievous, in order to preserve trade laws 
that are useless. Such is the wisdom of our plan 
in both its members. They are separately given 

always to be 


up as of no vuli.e 





7f> BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


defended for the sake of the other. But I cannot 
agree with the noble lord, nor with the pamphlet 
from whence he seems to have borrowed these 
ideas, concerning the inutility of the trade laws. 
For, without idolizing them, I am sure they are still, 
in many ways, of great use to us: and in former 
times they have been of the greatest, d’hey do 
confine, and they do greatly narrow, the market 
for the Americans. But my perfect conviction of 
this does not help me in the least to discern how 
the revenue laws form any security whatsoever 
to the commercial regulations; or that these com¬ 
mercial regulations are the true ground of the 
quarrel; or that the giving way, in any one 
instance, of authority, is to lose all that may 
remain unconceded. 

[74] One fact is clear and indisputable. The public 
and avowed origin of this quarrel was on taxation. 
This quarrel has indeed brought on new disputes 
on new questions; but certainly the least bitter, 
and the fewest of all, on the trade laws. To 
judge which of the two be the real, radical .cause 
of quarrel, we have to see whether the commercial 
dispute did, in order of time, precede the dispute 
on taxation? There is not a shadow of evidence 
for it. Next, to enable us to judge whether at 
this moment a dislike to the.trade laws be the real 
cause of quarrel, it is absolutely necessary to put 
the taxes.out of the question by a repeal. See how 
the Americans act in this position, and then you 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 77 


will be able to discern correctly what is the true 
object of the controversy, or whether any contro¬ 
versy at all will remain. Unless you consent to 
• remove this cause of, difference, it is impossible, 
with decency, to assert that the dispute is not upon 
what it is avowed to be. And I would. Sir, recom¬ 
mend to your serious consideration, whether it be 
prudent to form a rule for punishing people, not 
on their own acts, but on your conjectures ? 
Surely it is preposterous at the very best. It is 
not justifying your anger, by their misconduct; 
but it is converting your ill-will into their delin¬ 
quency. 

[75] But the colonies will go further.—Alas! alas! 
when will this speculating against fact and reason 
end?—What will quiet these panic fears which we 
entertain of the hostile effect of a conciliatory con¬ 
duct? Is it true, that no case can exist, in which 
it is proper for the sovereign to accede to the 
desires of his discontented subjects? Is there any¬ 
thing peculiar in this case, to make a rule for itself? 
Is all authority of course lost, when it is not 
pushed to the extreme? Is it a certain maxim, 
that the fewer causes of dissatisfaction are left by 
government, the more the subject will be inclined 
to resist and rebel? 

[76] All these objections being in fact no more than 
suspicions, conjecture^ divinations, formed in 
defiance of fact and experience; they did not, Sir, 
discourage me from entertaining the idea of a con- 


78 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


ciliatory concession, founded on the principles 
which I have just stated. 

[77] In forming a plan for this purpose, I endeavoured 
to put myself in that frame of mind which was the 
most natural, and the most reasonable; and which 
was certainly the most probable means of securing 
me from all error. I set out with a perfect dis¬ 
trust of my own abilities; a total renunciation of 
every speculation of my own; and with a profound 
reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors, who 
have left us the inheritance of so happy a con¬ 
stitution, and so flourishing an empire, and w^hat is 
^ thousand times more valuable, the treasury of 
,the maxims and principles which formed the one, 

Vand obtained the other. 

[78] During the reigns of the kings of Spain of the 
Austrian family, whenever they were at a loss in 
the Spanish councils, it was common for their 
statesmen to say, that they ought to consult the 
genius of Philip the Second. The genius of 
Philip the Second might mislead them; and the 
issue of their affairs showed, that they had not 
chosen the most perfect standard. But, Sir, I am 
sure that I shall not be misled, when, in a case 
of constitutional difficulty, I consult the genius 
^ the English constitution. Consulting at that 

^ oracle (it was with all due humility and piety) I 
found four capital examples in a similar case before 
me; those of Ireland, Wales, Chester, and Dur¬ 
ham. 


BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 79 


[<9] Ireland, before the English conquest, though 
never governed by a despotic power, had no parlia¬ 
ment. How far the English parliament itself was 
at that time modelled according to the present 
form, is disputed among antiquarians. But we 
have all the reason in the world to be assured that 
a form of parliament, such as England then 
eiijoyed, she instantly communicated to Ireland; 
and we are equally sure that almost every suc¬ 
cessive improvement in constitutional liberty, as 
fast as it was made here, was transmitted thither. 
The feudal baronage, and the feudal knighthood, 
the roots of our primitive constitution, were eai’ly 
transplanted into that soil; and grew and flourished 
there. Magna Oharta, if it did not give us origi¬ 
nally the House of Commons, gave us at least a 
House of Commons of weight and consequence. 
But your ancestors did not churlishly sit down alone 
to the feast of Magna Charta. Ireland was made 
immediately a pai*taker. This benefit of English 
laws and liberties, I confess, was not at first 
extended to all Ireland. Mark the consequence, 
English authority and English liberties had 
t xactly the same boundaries. Your standard could 
never be advanced an inch before your privileges. 
Sir John Davis shows beyond a doubt, that the 
refusal of a general communication of these rights 
was the true cause why Ireland was five hundred 
years in subduing; and after the vain projects of 
a militai-y governmeiit, attempted in the reign of 


80 BURKFyS SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


Queen Elizabeth, it was soon discovered, that noth¬ 
ing could make that country English, in civility 
and allegiance, but your laws and your forms of 
legislature. It was not English arms, but the 
English constitution, that conquered Ireland. 
From that time, Ireland has ever had a general 
parliament, as she had before a partial 2'>arliament. 
You changed the people; you altered the religion; 
but you never touched the form or the vital sub¬ 
stance of free government in that kingdom.. You 
deposed kings; you restored them; you altered the 
succession to theirs, as well as to your own crown; 
but you never altered their constitution; the 
principle of which was respected by usurpation; 
restored with the restoration of monarchy, and 
established, I trust, for ever, by the glorious 
Revolution. This has made Ireland the gi’eat and 
flourishing kingdom that it is; and from a dis¬ 
grace and a burthen intolerable to this nation, has 
rendered her a principal part of our strength and 
ornament. This country cannot be said to have 
ever formally taxed her. The irregular things done 
in the confusion of mighty troubles, and on the 
hinge of great revolutions, even if all were done 
that is said to have been done, form no example. 
If they have any effect in argument, they make 
an exception to prove thq rule. None of your 
own liberties could stand a moment if the casual 
deviations from them, at such times, were suffered 
to be used as proofs of their nullity. By the 


BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 81 


v' 

lucrative amount of such casual breaches in the 
constitution, judge what the stated and fixed rule 
of supply has been in that kingdom. Your Irish 
pensioners would starve if they had no other fund 
to live on than taxes granted by English authority. 
Turn your eyes to those popular grants from whence 
all your great supplies are come; and learn to 
respect that only source of public wealth in the 
British empire. 

[ 80 ] My next example is Wales. This country was 
said to be reduced by Henry the Third. It was 
said more truly to be so by Edward the First. 
But though then conquered, it was not looked 
upon as any part of the realm of England. Its 
old constitution, whatever that might have been, 
was destroyed; and no good one was substituted in 
its place. The care of that tract was put into the 
hands of lords marchers—a form of government of 
a very singular kind; a strange heterogeneous 
monster, something between hostility and govern¬ 
ment ; perhaps it has a sort of resemblance, accord¬ 
ing to the modes of those times, to that of com¬ 
mander-in-chief at present, to whom all civil power 
is granted as secondary. The manners of the 
Welsh nation followed the genius of the govern¬ 
ment; the people were ferocious, restive, savage, 
and uncultivated; sometimes composed, never 
pacified. Wales, within itself, was in perpetual 
disorder; and it kept the frontier of England in 
perpetual alarm. Benefits from it to the state 






82 BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


there were none. Wales was only known to Eng- 

V land by incursion and invasion. 

[ 81 ] Sir, during that state of things, parliament was 
not idle. They attempted to subdue the fierce 
spirit of the Welsh by all sorts of rigorous laws. 
They prohibited by statute the sending all sorts 
of arms into Wales, as you prohibit by proc¬ 
lamation (with something more of doubt on the 
legality) the sending arms to America. They dis¬ 
armed the Welsh by statute, as you attempted (but 
still with more question on the legality) to disarm 
New England by an instruction. They made an 
act to drag offenders from Wales into England for 
trial, as you have done (but with more hardship) 
with regard to America. By another act, where 
one of the parties was an Englishman, they 
ordained, that his trial should be always by Eng¬ 
lish. They made acts to restrain trade, as you 
do; and they prevented the Welsh from the use of 
fairs and markets, as you do the Americans from 
fisheries and foreign ports. In short, when the 
statute book was not quite so much swelled as it is 
now, you find no less than fifteen acts of penal 
regulation on the subject of Wales. 

[ 82 ] Here we rub our hands—A fine body of prec¬ 
edents for the authority of parliament and the 
use of it!—I admit it fully; and pray add likewise 
to these precedents, that all the while, Wales rid 
this kingdom like an incuhus; that it was an 
unprofitable and oppressive burthen; and that an 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 83 


Englishman travelling in that country could not go 
six yards from the high road without being 
murdered. 

[83] The march of the human mind is slow. Sir, it 
was not, until after two hundred yeai’s, discovered,' 
that, by an eternal law. Providence ha^decreed 
vexation to violence, and poverty to rapine. Your 
ancestors did however at length open their eyes 
to the ill husbandry of injustice.. They found 
that the tyranny of a free people could of all 
tyrannies the least be endured; and that laws 
made against a whole nation were not the most 
effectual methods for securing its obedience. 
Accordingly, in the twenty-seventh year of Henry 
VIII. the course was entirely altered. With a 
preamble stating the entire and perfect rights of 
the crown of England, it gave to the Welsh all 
the rights and privileges of English subjects. A 
political order was established; the military power 
gave way to the civil; the marches were turned 
into counties. But that a nation should have a 
right to English liberties, and yet no share at all 
in the fundamental security of these liberties—^the 
grant of their own property—seemed a thing so 
incongruous, that, eight years after, that is, in 
the thirty-fifth of that reign, a complete and not 
ill-proportioned representation by counties and 
boroughs was bestowed upon Wales, by act of par¬ 
liament. From that moment, as by a charm, the 
tumults subsided, obedience was restored, peace. 


84 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


order, and civilization followed in the train of 
liberty.—When the day-star of the English con¬ 
stitution had arisen in their hearts, all was harmony 
within and without— 

—Simul alba nautis 
Stella refulsit 

Defluit saxis agitatus humor; 

Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes, 

Et mina^ {qudd sic voluere) ponto 
Unda recumbit.^ 

The very same year the county palatine of 
Chester received the same relief from its oppres¬ 
sions, and the same remedy to its disorders. 
Before this time Chester was little less distempered 
than Wales. The inhabitants, without rights them¬ 
selves, were the fittest to destroy the rights of 
others; and from thence Richard II. drew the 
standing army of archers, with which for a time 
he oppressed England. The people of Chester 
applied to parliament in a petition penned as I 
shall read to you: 

“To the king our sovereign lord, in most humble 
wise shown unto your excellent Majesty, the 
inhabitants of your Grace’s county palatine of 
Chester; That where the said county palatine of 

^ As soon as the bright star has shone upon the sailors, 
the troubled water recedes from the rocks, the winds 
die away, the clouds scatter, and, because they [Castor 
and Pollux] have so willed, the threatening wave sub¬ 
sides upon the deep.— Horace, Odes, I. xii, 27-32, 



BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 85 


Chester is and hath been always hitherto exempt, 
excluded and separated out and from your high 
court of parliament, to have any knights and 
burgesses within the said court; by reason whereof 
the said inhabi^nts have hitherto sustained mani¬ 
fold disheriso^, losses, and damages, as well in 
their lands, goods, and bodies, as in the good, civil, 
and politic governance and maintenance of the 
commonwealth of their said country: (2) And 
forasmuch as the said inhabitants have always 
liitherto been bound by the acts and statutes 
made and ordained by your said Highness, and your 
most noble progenitors, by authority of the said 
court, as far forth as other counties, cities, and 
boroughs have been, that have had their knights 
and burgesses within your said court of parliament, 
and yet have had neither knight ne burgess there 
for the said county palatine; the said inhabitants, 
for lack thereof, have been oftentimes touched and 
grieved with acts and statutes made within the 
said court, as well derog^ory unto the most 
ancient jurisdictions, liberties, and privileges of 
your said county palatine, as prejudicial unto the 
commonwealth, quietness, rest, and peace of your 
Grace’s most bounden subjects inhabiting within 
the same.” 

[86] What did parliament with this audacious address? 
—Reject it as a libel? Treat it as an afh’ont to 
government? Spurn it as a derogation from the 
rights of legislature? Did they toss it over the 


86 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


table? Did they burn it by the hands of the 
common hangman? They took the petition of 
grievance, all rugged as it was, without softening 
or temperament, unpurged of the original bitter¬ 
ness and indignation of complaint; they made it the 
very preamble to their act of redress; and conse¬ 
crated its principle to all ages in the sanctuary of 
legislation. 

[87] Here is my third example. It was attended 
with the success of the two former. Chester, 
civilized as well as Wales, has demonstrated that 
freedom, and not servitude, is the cure of anarchy; 
as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy 
for superstition. Sir, this pattern of Chester was 
followed in the reign of Chai’les II. with regard to 
the county palatine of Durham, which is my 
fourth example. This county had long lain out 
of the pale of free legislation. So scrupulously 
was the example of Chester followed, that the 
style of the preamble is nearly the same with that 
of the Chester act; and, without affecting the 
abstract extent of the authority of parliament, it 
recognises the equity of not suffering any consider¬ 
able district, in which the British subjects may act 
as a body, to be taxed without their own voice in 
the grant. 

[88] How if the doctrines of policy contained in 
these preambles, and the force of these examples 
in the acts of parliament, avail anything, what 
can be said against applying them with regard to 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 8? 


America? Are not the people of America as much 
Englishmen as the Welsh? The preamble of the 
act of Henry VIII. says, the Welsh speak a 
language no way resembling that of his Majesty’s 
English subjects. Are the Americans not as 
numerous? If we may trust the learned and 
accurate Judge Barrington’s account of North 
Wales, and take that as a standard to measure the 
rest, there is no comparison. The people cannot 
amount to above 200,000; not a tenth part of the 
number in the colonies. Is America in rebellion? 
Wales was hardly ever free from it. Have you 
attempted to govern America by penal statutes? 
You made fifteen for Wales. But your legislative 
authority is perfect with regard to America; was 
it less perfect in Wales, Chester, and Durham? 
But America is virtually represented. What! 
does the electric force of virtual representation 
more easily pass over the Atlantic, than per-^de t 
Wales, which lies in your neighbourhood; or than 
Chester and Durham, surrounded by abundance of 
representation that is actual and palpable? But, ^ 
Sir, your ancestors thought this sort of virtual 
representation, however ample, to be totally 
insufiicient for the freedom of the inhabitants of 
territories that are so near, and comparatively so 
inconsiderable. How then can I think it sufficient 
for those which are infinitely greater, and infinitely 
more remote? 

[89] You will now. Sir, perhaps, imagine, that I am 


88 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


on the point of proposing to yon a scheme for a 
representation of the colonies in parliament. Per¬ 
haps I might be inclined to entertain some such 
thought; but a great flood stops me in my course. 
Ojyposuit natura }—I cannot remove the eternal 
barriers of the creation. The thing, in that 
mode, I do not know to be possible. As I med¬ 
dle with no theory, I do not absolutely assert the 
impracticability of such a representation. But I 
do not see my way to it; and those who have been 
more confldent have not been more successful. 
However, the arm of public b enevolenc e is not 
shortened; and there are often severaPmeans to 
the same end. What nature has disjoined in one 
way, wisdom may unite in another. When we 

V cannot give the beneflt as we would wish, let us 
not refuse it altogether. If we cannot give the 
principal, let us And a substitute. But how? 
Where? What substitute? 

[ 90 ] Fortunately I am not obliged for the ways and 
means of this substitute to tax my own unproduc¬ 
tive invention. I am not even obliged to go to 
the rich treasm’y of the fertile framers of imaginary 
commonwealths; not to the Republic of Plato; 
not to the Utopia of More; not to the Oceana of 
Harrington. It is before me—it is at my feet, 

—and the rude sivain 
Treads daily on it unth his clouted shoon. 


^Nature has opposed.— Juvenal, Satires, x, 152. 




BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 89 


I only wish you to recognise, for the theory, the 
ancient constitutional policy of this kingdom with 
regal’d to representation, as that policy has been 
declared in acts of parliament; and, as to the 
practice, to return to that mode which an uniform 
experience has marked out to you, as best; and 
in which you walked with security, advantage, 
and honour, until the year 1763 . 

[91] My resolutions therefore mean to establish the 
equity and justice of a taxation of America, by 
grants and not by imposition. To mark the legal 
conipeUncy of the colony assemblies for the support 
of their government in peace, and for public aids 
in time of war. To acknowledge that this legal 
competency has had a dutiful and beneficial 
exercise; and that experience has shown the 
beyieiit of their grants., and the futility of par¬ 
liamentary taxation as a method of supply. 

[92] These solid truths compose six fundamental 
proposi^ns. There are three more resolutions 
corollary to these. If you admit the first set, you 
can hardly reject the others. But if you admit the 
first, I shall he far from solicitous whether you 
accept or refuse the last. I think these six mas¬ 
sive pillars will be of strength sufficient to support 
the temple of British concord. I have no more 
doubt than I entertain of my existence, that, if you 
admitted these, you would command an immediate 
peace; and, with but tolerable future manage¬ 
ment, a lasting obedience in America. I am not 


90 BURKE^S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


^ arrogant in this confident assurance. The propo¬ 
sitions are all mere matters of fact; and if they are 
such facts as draw irresistible conclusions even in 
the stating, this is the power of truth, and not any 
management of mine. 

[93] Sir, I shall open the whole plan to you, together 
Avith such observations on the motions as may tend 
to illustrate them where they may want explanation. 
The first is a resolution—“That the colonies and 
plantations of Great Britain in North America, 
consisting of fourteen separate governments, and 
containing two millions and upwards of free inhab¬ 
itants, have not had the liberty and privilege of 
electing and sending any knights and burgesses, or 
others, to represent them in the high court of 
paidianient. ”—This is a plain matter of fact, 
necessary to be laid down, and (excepting the 
description) it is laid down in the language of the 
constitution; it is taken nearly verbatim from acts 
of parliament. 

[94] The second is like unto the first—“That the 
said colonies and plantations have been liable to, 

V and bounden by,- several subsidies, payments, rates, 
and taxes, given and granted by parliament, 
though the said colonies and plantations have not 
their knights and burgesses in the said high court 
of parliament, of their own election, to represent the 
condition of their country; by lack whereof they 
have been oftentimes touched and grieved by sub¬ 
sidies given, granted, and assented to, in the said 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 91 


court, in a manner prejudicial to the common¬ 
wealth, quietness, rest, and peace of the subjects 
inhabiting within the same.” 

[95] Is this description too hot,^^o^,too cold, too 
strong, or too weak? Does it arrogate too much to 
the supreme legislature? Does it lean too much 
to the claims of the people? If it runs into any of 
these errors, the fault is not mine. It is the 
language of your own ancient acts of parliament. 

Non mens hie sermo, sed quce prcecepit Ofellus, 

Rusticus, abnormis sapiens.^ 

It is the genuine produce of the ancient, rustic, 
manly, home-bred sense of this country.—I did 
not dare to rub off a particle of the venerable rust 
that rather adorns and preserves, than destroys, 
the metal. It would be a profanation to touch 
with a tool the stones which construct the sacred 
altai’ of peace. I would not violate with modern 
polish the ingenuous and noble roughness of these 
truly constitutional materials. Above all things, 
I was resolved not to be guilty of tampering: the 
odious vice of restless and unstable minds. I 
put my foot in the tracks of our forefathers, where 
I can neither wander nor stumble. Determining 
to fix ai’ticles of peace, I was resolved not to be 
wise beyond what was written; I was resolved to 
use nothing else than the form of sound words; to 


^ This language is not mine, but that taught by Ofellus, 
a rustic, but unusually wise.— Horace, Satires, II,[ii, 2,3. 



92 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


let others abound in their own sense; and care¬ 
fully to abstain from all expressions of my own. 
What the law has said, I say. In all things else I 
am silent. I have no organ but for her words. 
This, if it be not ingenious, I am sure is safe. 

[96] There are indeed words expressive of grievance 
in this second resolution, which those who are 
resolved always to be in* the right will deny to 
contain matter of fact, as applied to the present 
case; although parliament thought them true, 
with regard to the counties of Chester and 
Durham. They will deny that the Americans 
were ever “touched and grieved” with the taxes. 

.If t^y consider nothing in taxes but their weight 
'^as pecuniary impositions, there might be some 
pretence for this denial. But men may be sorely 
touched and deeply grieved in their privileges, as 
well as in their purses. Men may lose little in 
property by the act! which takes away all their 
freedom. When a man (is robbed of a trifle on 
the highway, it is not the two-pence lost that con¬ 
stitutes the capital outrage. This is not conflned 
to privileges. Even ancient indulgences with¬ 
drawn, without offence, on the part of those who 
enjoyed such favours, opeuate as grievances. But 
were the Americans then not touched and grieved 
by the taxes, in some measure, merely as taxes? 
If so, why were they almost all either wholly 
repealed or exceedingly reduced? AVere they not 
touched and grieved even by the regulating duties of 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 93 


the sixth of George II.? Else why were the duties 
first reduced to one-third in 1764, and afterwards 
to a third of that third in the year 1766? Were 
they not touched and grieved by the stamp act? 
I shall say they were, until that tax is revived. 
Were they not touched and grieved by the duties 
of 1767, which were likewise repealed, and which 
Lord Hillsborough tells you (for the ministry) 
were laid contrary to the true principle of com¬ 
merce? Is not the assurance given by that noble 
person to the colonies of a resolution to lay no 
more taxes on them, an admission that taxes would 
touch and grieve them? Is not the resolution of 
the noble lord in the blue riband, now standing on 
your journals, the strongest of all proofs that 
parliamentary subsidies really touched and grieved 
them? Else why all these changes, modifications, 
repeals, assurances, and resolutions? 

fOT] The next proposition is—^That from the dis¬ 
tance of the said colonies^ and from other circum¬ 
stances, no method hath hitherto been devised for 
procuring a representation in parliament for the 
said colonies.” This is an assertion of a fact. I 
go no further on the paper; though, in my private 
judgment, an useful representation is impossible; 
I am sure it is not desired by them; nor ought it 
perhaps by us; but I abstain from opinions. 

[98] The fourth resolution is—^That each of the said 
colonies hath within itself a body, chosen in part, or 
in the whole, by the freemen, freeholders, or other 


94 BURKE^S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


free inhabitants thereof, commonly called the Gen¬ 
eral Assembly, or General Court; with powers legally 
to raise, levy, and assess, according to the several 
usage of such colonies, duties and taxes towards 
^ defraying all sorts of public services.)’ 

[99] This competence in the colony assemblies is 
certain. It is proved by the whole tenor of their 
acts of supply in all the assemblies, in which the 
constant style of granting is, “an aid to his 
Majesty;” and acts granting to the crown have 
regularly for near a century pasisd the public 
offices Avithout dispute. Those who have been 
pleased paradoxically to deny this right, holding 
that none but the British parliament can grant to 
the crown, are Avished to look to what is done, not 
only in the colonies, hut in Ireland, in one uni¬ 
form unbroken tenor every session. Sir, I am 
surprised that this doctrine should come from some 
of the law servants of the crown. I say, that if 
the crown could be responsible, his Majesty—but 
certainly the ministers, and even these laAV officers 
themselves, through whose hands the acts pass 
biennially in Ireland, or annually in the colonies, 
are in an habitual course of committing impeach¬ 
able otfences. What habitual offenders have been 
all presidents of the council, all secretaries of state, 
all first lords of trade, all attorneys and all solicitors 
general! However, they are safe; as no one impeaches 
them; and there is no ground of charge against 
them, except in their oAvn unfounded theories. 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 95 


[100] The fifth resolution is also a resolution of fact— 
tThat the said general assemblies, general courts, 
or other bodies legally qualified as aforesaid, have 
at sundry times freely granted several large sub¬ 
sidies and public aids for his Majesty’s service, 
according to their abilities, when required thereto 
by letter from one of his Majesty’s principal secre¬ 
taries of state; and that their right to grant the 
same, and their cheerfulness and sufficiency in the 
said grants, have been at sundry times acknowledged 
by parliament.)’ To say nothing of their great 
expenses in the Indian wars; and not to take their 

• exertion in foreign ones, so high as the supplies in 
the year 1695; not to go back to their public con¬ 
tributions in the year 1710; I shall begin to travel 
only where the journals give me light; resolving 
to deal in nothing but fact, authenticated by 
parliamentary record; and to build myself wholly 
on that solid basis. 

[101] On the 4th of April, 1748, a committee of this 
House came to the following resolution: 

“Resolved, 

“That it is the opinion of this committee. That 
it is just and reasonable that the several provinces 
and colonies of Massachusetts Bay, New Hamp¬ 
shire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, be reim¬ 
bursed the expenses they have been at in taking 
and securing to the crown of Great Britain the 
island of Cape Breton and its dependencies.” 
fl02] These expenses were immense for such colonies- 


96 BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


They were above £200,000 sterling; money first 
raised and advanced on their public credit. 

[103] On the 28th of January, 1756, a message from 
the king came to us, to this effect—“His Majesty, 
being sensible of the zeal and vigour with which 
his faithful subjects of certain colonies in North 
America have exerted themselves in defence of his 
Majesty’s just rights and possessions, recommends 
it to this House to take the same into their con¬ 
sideration, and to enable his Majesty to give them 
such assistance as may be a 'proper reward a'nd 
encouragement. ’ ’ 

[104] On the third of February, 1756, the House came • 
to a suitable resolution, expressed in words nearly 
the same as those of the message: but with the 
further addition, that the money then voted was 
an encouragement to the colonies to exert them¬ 
selves with vigour. It will not be necessary to go 
through all the testimonies which your own records 
have given to the truth of my resolutions, I will 
only refer you to the places in the journals: 

Vol. xxvii.—16th and 19th May, 1757. 

Vol. xxviii.—June 1st, 1758—April 26th and 
30th, 1759—March 26th and 31st, 
and April 28th, 1760—Jan. 9th 
and 20th, 1761. 

Vol. xxix.—Jan. 22nd and 26th, 1762—March 
14th and 17th, 1763. 

[105] Sir, here is the repeated acknowledgment of 
parliament, that the colonies not only gave, but 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 97 


gave to satiety. This nation has formally 
acknowledged two things; first, that the colonies 
had gone beyond their abilities, parliament having 
thought it necessary to reimburse them; secondly, 
that they had acted legally and laudably in their 
grants of money, and their maintenance of troops, 
since the compensation is expressly given as reward 
and encouragement. Eeward is not bestowed for 
acts that are unlawful; and encouragement^s not 
held out to things that deserve reprehensio'^i. My ^ 
resolution therefore does nothing more than col¬ 
lect into one proposition, what is scattered through 
your journals. I give you nothing but your own; 
and you cannot refuse in the gross, what you have 
so often acknowledged in detail. The admission of 
this, which will be so honourable to them and to 
you, will, indeed, be mortal to all the miserable 
stories, by which the passions of the misguided 
people have been engaged in an unhappy system. 
The people heard, indeed, from the beginning of 
these disputes, one thing continually dinned in 
their ears, that reason and justice demanded, that 
the Americans, who paid no taxes, should be com¬ 
pelled to contribute. How did that fact, of their 
paying nothing, stand, when the taxing system 
began? When Mr. Grenville began to form his 
system of American revenue, he stated in this 
House, that the colonies were then in debt two 
million six hundred thousand pounds sterling 
money; and was of opinion they would discharge 


98 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


that debt in four years. On this state, those 
untaxed people were actually subject to the pay¬ 
ment of taxes to the amount of six hundred and 
fifty thousand a year. In fact, however, Mr. 
Grenville was mistaken. The funds given for 
sinking the debt did not prove quite so ample as 
both the colonies and he expected. The calcula- 
tion was too sanguine; the reduction was not com¬ 
pleted till some years after, and at different times 
in different colonies. However, the taxes after the 
war continued too great to bear any addition, with 
prudence or propriety; and when the burthens im¬ 
posed in consequence of former requisitions were 
discharged, our tone became too high to resort again 
to requisition. 'No colony, since that time, ever 
has had any requisition whatsoever made to it. 

[106] We see the sense of the crown, and the sense of 
parliament, on the productive nature of a revenue 
ly grant. Now search the same journals for the 
produce of the revenue by imposition —Where is 
it?—^let us know the volume and the page—what is 
the gross, what is the net produce?—to what 
service is it applied?—how have you appropriated 
its surplus?—What, can none of the many skilful 
index-makers that we are now employing, find any 
trace of it?—Well, let them and that rest together. 
—But are the journals, which say nothing of the 
revenue, as silent on the discontent?—Oh, no! a 
child may find it. It is the melancholy burthen 
and blot of every page. 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 99 


[107] I think then I am, from those journals, justified 
in the sixth and last resolution, which is—“That 
it hath been found by experience, that the manner 
of granting the said supplies and aids, by the said 
general assemblies, hath been more agreeable to th^ 
said colonies, and more beneficial, and conducive 
to the public service, than the mode of giving and 
granting aids in parliament, to be raised and paid in 
the said colonies.” This makes the whole of the 
fundamental part of the plan. The conclusion is 
irresistible. You cannot say, that you were diiven 
by any necessity to an exercise of the utmost rights 
of legislature. You cannot assert, that you took 
on yourselves the task of imposing colony taxes, 
from the want of another legal body, that is com- 
petent to the purpose of supplying the exigen(]fes 
of the state without wounding the prejudices of the 
people. Neither is it true that the body so quali¬ 
fied, and having that competence, had neglected 
the duty. 

[108] The question now, on all this accumulated 
matter, is;—^whether you will choose to abide by a 
profitable experience, or a mischievous theory; 
whether you choose to build on imagination, or 
fact; whether you prefer enjoyment, or hope; 
satisfaction in your subjects, or discontent? 

[109] If these propositions are accepted, everything 
which has been made to enforce a contrary system, 
must, I take it for granted, fall along with it. 
On that ground, I have drawn the following resolu^ 


100 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 

tion, which, when it comes to be moved, will 
naturally be divided in a proper manner: “That it 
may he proper to repeal an act, made in the 
seventh year of the reign of his present Majesty, 
intituled. An act for granting certain duties in the 
British colonies and plantations in America; for 
allowing a drawback of the duties of customs upon 
the exportation from this kingdom, of coffee and 
cocoa-nuts of the produce of the said colonies or 
plantations; for discontinuing the drawbacks pay¬ 
able on China eai’thenware exported to America; 
and for more effectually preventing the clandestine 
running of goods in the said colonies and planta¬ 
tions.—And that it maybe proper to repeal an act, 
made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his 
present Majesty, intituled. An act to discontinue, 
in such manner, and for such time, as are therein 
mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or 
shipping, of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the 
town and within the harbour of Boston, in the 
province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America. 
—And that it may he proper to repeal an act, made 
in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present 
Majesty, intituled. An act for the impartial admin¬ 
istration of justice, in the cases of persons ques¬ 
tioned for any acts done by them, in the execution 
of the law, or for the suppression of riots and 
tumults, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in 
New England.—And that it may be proper to 
repeal an act, made in the fourteenth year of the 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 101 


reign of his present Majesty, intituled, An act for 
the better regulating the government of the prov¬ 
ince of- Massachusetts Bay, in New England.— 
And, also, that it may be proper to explain and 
amend an act, made in the thirty-fifth year of the 
reign of King Henry the Eighth, intituled. An act 
for the trial of treasons committed out of the 
king’s dominions.” 

[110] I wish, Sir, to repeal the Boston Port Bill, 
because (independently of the dangerous precedent 
of suspending the rights of the subject during the 
king’s pleasure) it was passed, as I apprehend, 
with less regulai’ity, and on more partial principles, 
than it ought. The corporation of Boston was not 
heard before it was condemned. Other towns, 
full as guilty as she was, have not had their ports 
blocked up. Even the restraining bill of the 
present session does not go to the length of the' 
Boston Port Act. • The same ideas of prudence, 
which induced you not to extend equal punishment 
to equal guilt, even when you were punishing, 
induced me, who mean not to chastise, but to 
reconcile, to be satisfied with the punishment 
already partially inflicted. 

[111] Ideas of prudence and accommodation to cir¬ 
cumstances, prevent you from taking away the 
charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island, as you 
have taken away that of Massachusetts colony, 
though the crown has far less power in the two 
former provinces than it enjoyed in the latter; and 


102 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


though the abuses have been full as gi’eat, and as 
flagrant, in the exempted as in the punished. The 
same reasons of prudence and accommodation have 
weight with me in restoring the charter of Massa¬ 
chusetts Bay. Besides, Sir, the act which changes 
the charter of Massachusetts is in many particulars 
so exceptionable, that if I did not wish absolutely 
to repeal, I would by all means desire to alter it; 
as several of its provisions tend to the subversion 
of all public and private justice. Such, among 
others, is the power in the governor to change the 
sheriff at his pleasure; and to make a new return¬ 
ing officer for every special cause. It is shameful 
to behold such a regulation standing among English 
laws. 

[112] The act for bringing persons accused of commit¬ 
ting murder under the orders of government to 
England for trial is but temporary. That act has 
calculated the probable duration of our quarrel 
with the colonies; and is accommodated to that 
supposed duration. I would hasten the happy 
moment of reconciliation; and therefore must, on 
my principle, get rid of that most justly obnoxious 
act. 

[ 113 ] The act of Henry the Eighth, for the trial of 
treasons, I do not mean to take away, hut to con-, 
flne it to its proper hounds and original intention; 
to make it expressly for trial of treasons (and the 
greatest treasons may he committed) in places 
where the jurisdiction of the crown does not extend. 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 103 


[114] Having guarded the privileges of local legisla¬ 
ture, I would next secure to the colonies a fair and 
unbiassed judicature; for which purpose, Sir, I 
propose the following res^ution: “That, from the 
time when the general assembly or general court of 
any colony or plantation in North America, shall 
have appointed by act of assembly, duly confirmed, 
a settled salary to the ofiices of the chief justice 
and other judges of the superior court, it may be 
proper that the said chief justice and other judges 
of the superior courts of such colony, shall hold 
his and their office and offices during their good 
behaviour; and shall not be removed therefrom, 
but when the said removal shall be adjudged by 
his Majesty in council, upon a hearing on com¬ 
plaint from the general assembly, or on a complaint 
from the governor, or council, or the house of rep¬ 
resentatives severally, of the colony in which the 
said chief justice and other judges have exercised 
the said offices.” 

[115] The next resolution relates to the courts of 
admkalty. It is this:—“That it may be proper 
to regulate the courts of admiralty, or vice¬ 
admiralty, authorized by the fifteenth chapter of 
the fourth of George the Thhd, i^^such a manner 
as to make the same more commodious to those 
who sue, or are sued, in the said courts, and to 
provide for the more decent maintenance of the 
judges in the same.” 

[116] These courts I do not wish to take away; they 


104 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


are in themselves proper establishments. This 
court is one of the capital securities of the act of 
navigation. The extent of its Jurisdiction, indeed, 
has been increased; hut this is altogether as 
proper, and is indeed on many accounts more 
eligible, where new powers were wanted, than a 
court absolutely new. But courts incommodiou^y 
situated, in effect, deny Justice; and a court, par¬ 
taking in the fruits of its own condemnation, is a 
robber. The congress complain, and complain 
Justly, of this grievance. 

[117] These are the three consequential propositions. 
I have thought of two or three more; but they 
come rather too near detail, and to the province of 
executive government; which I wish parliament 
always to superintend, i^^fer to assume. If the 

'J first six are granted, congruity will carry the latter 

' three. If not, the things that remain unrepealed 
will be, I hope, rather unseemly encumbrances on 
the building, than very materially detrimental to 
its strength and stability. 

[118] Here, Sir, I should close; but I plainly perceive 
some objections remain, which I ought, if possible, 
to remove. The first will be, that, in resorting to 
the doctrine of our ancestors, as contained in the 
preamble to the Chester act, I prove too much; 
that the grievance from a want of representation, 
stated in that preamble, goes to the whole of 
legislation as well as to taxation. And that 
the colonies, grounding themselves upon that 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 105 

doctrine, will apply it to all parts of legislative 
authority. 

[119] To this objection, with all possible deference and 
humility, and wishing as little as any man living 
to impair the smallest particle of our supreme 
authority, I answer, that the words are the loords 
of parliament^ and not mine; and, that all false and 
inconclusive inferences, drawn from them, are not 
mine; for I heartily disclaim any such inference. 
I have chosen the words of an act of parliament, 
which Mr. Grenville, surely a tolerably zealous and 
very judicious advocate for the sovereignty of par¬ 
liament, formerly moved to have read at your table 
in confirmation of his tenets.^ It is true, that Lord 
Chatham considered these preambles as declaring 
strongly in favour of his opinions. He was a no 
less powerful advocate for the privileges of the 
Americans. Ought I not from hence to presume, 
that these preambles are as favourable as possible 
to both, when properly understood; favourable 
both to the rights of parliament, and to the 
privilege of the dependencies of this crown? But, 
Sir, the object of grievance in my resolution I 
have not taken from the Chester, but from the 
Durham act, which confines the hardship of want 
of representation to the case of subsidies; and which 
therefore falls in exactly with the case of the colo¬ 
nies. But whether the unrepresented counties 
were de jure^ or de facto, bound, the preambles do 
not accurately distinguish; nor indeed was it neces- 


V/ 


106 BURKE^S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


sary; for, whether de jure or de facto^ the legisla¬ 
ture thought the exercise of the power of taxing, 
as of right, or as of fact without right, equally a 
grievance, and equally oppressive. 

[120] I do not know that the colonies have, in any 
general way, or in any cool hour, gone much 
^beyond the demand of immunity in relation to 
taxes. It is not fair to judge of the temper or 
dispositions of any man, or any set of men, when 
they are composed and at rest, from their conduct, 
or their expressions, in a state of disturbance and 
irritation. It is besides a very great mistake to 
imagine, that mankind follow up practically any 
speculative principle, either of government or of 
freedom, as far as it will go in argument and log- 
ical illation. We Englishmen stop very short of 
the principles upon which we support any given part 
of our constitution; or even the whole of it together. 
I could easily, if I had not already tired you, give 
you very striking and convincing instances of it. 
This is nothing but what is natural and proper. 
All government, indeed every human benefit and 
enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is 
founded on compromise and barter. We balance 
inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some 
rights that we may enjoy others; and we choose 
^ rather to be happy citizens than subtle disputants. 
As we must give away some natural liberty, to enjoy 
civil advantages; so we must sacrifice some civil 
liberties, for the advantages to be derived from the 


BURKE^S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 107 


communion and fellowship of a great empire. But, 
in all fair dealings, the thing bought must hear 
some proportion to the purchase paid. None will 
barter away the immediate jewel of his soul. 
Though a great house is apt to make slaves haughty, 
yet it is purchasing a part of the ai’tificial impor¬ 
tance of a gi-eat empire too dear, to pay for it all 
essential rights, and all the intrinsic dignity of 
human nature. None of us who would not risk 
his life rather than fall under a government purely 
arbitrary. But although there are some amongst 
us who think our constitution wants many improve¬ 
ments, to make it a complete system of liberty; 
perhaps none who are of that opinion would think 
it right to aim at such improvement, by disturbing 
his country, and risking everything that is dear to 
him. In every arduous enterprise, we consider 
what we are to lose as well as what we are to gain; 
and the more and better stake of liberty every 
people possess, the less they will hazard in a vaki 
attempt to make it more. These are the cords of 
man. Man acts from adequate motives relative to 
his interest; and not on metaphysical speculations. 
Aristotle, the gi’eat master of reasoning, cautions 
us, and with great weight and propriety, against 
this species of delusive geometrical accuracy in 
moral arguments, as the most fallacious of all 
sophistry. 

[121] The Americans will have no interest contrary to 
the grandeur and glory of England, when they ai’e 


108 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


not oppressed by the weight of it; and they will 
rather be inclined to respect the acts of a superin¬ 
tending legislature, when they see them the acts of 
that power, which is itself the security, not the 
rival, of their secondary importance, ^n this 
^ assurance, my mind most perfectly acquiesces: and 
I confess, I feel not the least alarm from the dis¬ 
contents which are to arise from putting people at 
their ease; nor do I apprehend the destruction of 
this empire, from giving, by an act of free grace 
and indulgence, to two millions of my fellow- 
citizens some share of those rights, upon which I 
have always been taught to value myself. 

[122] It is said, indeed, that this power of granting, 
vested in American assemblies, would dissolve the 
unity of the empire; which was preserved entire, 
although Wales, and Chester, and Durham were 
added to it. Truly, Mr.’Speaker, I do not know 
what this unity means; nor has it ever been heard 
of, that I know, in the constitutional policy of this 
country. The very idea of subordination of parts, 
excludes this notion of simple and undivided unity. 
England is the head; but she is not the head and 
the members too. Ireland has ever had from the 
beginning a separate, but not an independent, 
legislature; which, far from distracting, promoted 
the union of the whole. Everything was sweetly 
and harmoniously disposed through both islands 
for the conservation of English dominion, and the 
communication of English liberties. I do not see 


BURKE^S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 109 


that the same principles might not be carried into 
twenty islands, and with the same good effect. 
This is my model with regard to America, as far as 
the internal circumstances of the two countries are 
the same. I know no other unity of this empire, 
than I can draw from its example during these 
periods, when it seemed to my poor understanding 
more united than it is now, or than it is likely to 
be by the present methods. 

But since I speak of these methods, I recollect, 
Mr. Speaker, almost too late, that I promised, 
before I finished, to say something of the proposi¬ 
tion of the noble lord on the fioor, which has been 
so lately received, and stands on your journals. I 
must be deeply concerned, whenever it is my mis¬ 
fortune to continue a difference with the majority 
of this House. But as the reasons for that differ¬ 
ence are my apology for thus troubling you, suffer 
me to state them in a very few words. I shall 
compress them iuto as small a body as I possibly 
can, having already debated that matter at large, 
when the question was before the committee. 

First, then, I cannot admit that proposition of a 
ransom by auction;—^because it is a mere project. 
It is a thing new; unheard of; supported by no 
experience; justified by no analogy; without exam¬ 
ple of our ancestors, or root in the constitution. 
It is neither regular parliamentary taxation, nor 
colony grant. Experimentum in corpore vili^ is a 


* Let us make the experiment on something worthless, 



110 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


good rule, whicli will ever make me adverse to any 
trial of experiments on what is certainly the most 
valuable of all subjects, the peace of this empire. 

[125] Secondly, it is an experiment which must be 
fatal in the end to our constitution. For what is 
it but a scheme for taxing the colonies in the 
antechamber of the noble lord and his successors? 
To settle the quotas and proportions in this House, 
is clearly impossible. You, Sir, may flatter your¬ 
self you shall sit a state auctioneer, with your ham¬ 
mer in your hand, and knock down to each colony 
as it bids. But to settle (on the plan laid down by 
the noble lord) the true proportional payment for 
four or flve and twenty governments, according to 
the absolute and the relative wealth of each, and 
according to the British proportion of wealth and 
^ burthen, is a wild and chimerical notion. This 
new taxation must therefore come in by the back¬ 
door of the constitution. Each quota must be 
brought to this House ready formed; you can 
neither add nor alter. You must register it. You 
can do nothing further. For on what grounds can 
you deliberate either before or after the proposi¬ 
tion? You cannot hear the counsel for all these 
provinces, quarrelling each on its own quantity of 
payment, and its proportion to others. If you 
should attempt it, the committee of provincial 
ways and means, or by whatever other name it will 
delight to be called, must swallow up all the time 
of parliament. 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 111 


fl26] Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the com¬ 
plaint of the colonies. They complain, that they 
are taxed without their consent; you answer, that 
you will fix the sum at which they shall be taxed. 
That is, you give them the very grievance for the 
remedy. You tell them, indeed, that you will 
leave the mode to themselves. I really beg par¬ 
don : it gives me pain to mention it; but you must 
he sensible that you will not perform this part of 
the compact. For, suppose the colonies were to 
lay the duties, which furnished their contingent, 
upon the importation of your manufactures; you 
know you would never suffer such a tax to be laid. 
You know, too, that you would not suffer many 
other modes of taxation. So that, when you come 
to explain yourself, it will be found, that you will 
neither leave to themselves the quantum nor the 
mode; nor indeed Anything. The whole is delusion' 
from one end to the other. 

[127] Fourthly, this method of ransom by auction, 
unless it be universjally accepted, will plunge you 
into great and in^tricable difficulties. In what ^ 
year of our Lord are the proportions of payments 
to be settled? To say nothing of the impossibility 
that colony agents should have general powers of 
taxing the colonies at their discretion; consider, I 
implore you, that the communication by special 
messages, and orders between these agents and their 
constituents on each vai-iation of the case, when 
the parties come to contend together, and to dis- 


1 /^ 


112 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


pute on their relative proportions, will be a matter 
of delay, perplexity, and confusion that never can 
have an end. 

If all the 'colonies do not appear at the outcry, 
what is the condition of those assemblies, who offer 
by themselves or their agents, to tax themselves 
up to your ideas of their proportion? The refrac¬ 
tory colonies, who refuse all composition, will 
remain taxed only to your old impositions, which, 
however grievous in principle, are trifling as to 
production. The obedient colonies in this scheme 
are heavily taxed; the refractory remain unbur- 
thened. What will you do? Will you lay new and 
heavier taxes by parliament on the disobedient? 
Pray consider in what way you can do it. You are 
perfectly convinced, that, in the way of taxing, 
you can do nothing but at the ports. Kow sup¬ 
pose it is Virginia that refuses to appear at your 
auction, while Maryland and North Carolina bid 
handsomely for their ransom, and are taxed to your 
quota, how will you put these colonies on a par? 
Will you tax the tobacco of Virginia? If you do, 
you give its death-wound to your English revenue 
at home, and to one of the very gi’eatest articles of 
your own foreign trade. If you tax the import of 
that rebellious colony, what do you tax but your 
own manufactures, or the goods of some other 
obedient and already well-taxed colony? Who has 
said one word on this labyrinth of detail, which 
bewilders you more and more as you enter into it? 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 113 


Who has presented, who can present you with a 
clue, to lead you out of it? I think, Sir, it is 
impossible, that you should not recollect that the 
colony bounds are so implicated in one another, 
(you know it by your other experiments in the bill 
for prohibiting the New England fishery,) that you 
can lay no possible restraints on almost any cf them 
which may not be presently eluded, if you do not 
confound the innocent with the guilty, and 
burthen those whom, upon every principle, you 
ought to exonerate. He must be grossly ignorant 
of America, who thinks that, without falling into 
this confusion of all rules of equity and policy, 
you can restrain any single colony, especially Vir¬ 
ginia and Maryland, the central and most important 
of them all. 

[ 129 ] Let it also be considered, that, either in the 
present confusion you settle a permanent con¬ 
tingent, which will and must he trifiing; and then 
you have no efiectual revenue: or you change the 
quota at every exigency; and then on every new 
repartition you will have a new quarrel. 

[ 130 ] Refiect besides, that when you have fixed a quota 
for every colony, you have not provided for prompt 
and punctual payment. Suppose one, two, five, 
ten years’ arrears. You cannot issue a treasury 
extent against the failing colony. You must make 
new Boston Port Bills, new restraining laws, new 
acts for dragging men to England for trial. You 
must send out new fleets, new armie.s. All is to 


114 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


begin again. From this day forward the empire is 
never to know an hour’s tranquillity. An 
intestine fire will be kept alive in the bowels of the 
colonies, which one time or other must consume 
this whole empire. I allow indeed that the empire 
of Germany raises her revenue and her troops by 
quotas and contingents; but the revenue of the 
empire, and the army of the empire, is the worst 
revenue and the worst army in the world. 

I Instead of a standing revenue, you will therefore 
have a perpetual quarrel. Indeed the noble lord, 
who proposed this project of a ransom by auction, 
seemed himself to be of that opinion. His project 
was rather designed for breaking the union of the 
colonies, than for establishing a revenue. He 
confessed, he apprehended, that his proposal would 
not be to their taste. I say, this scheme of dis¬ 
union seems to be at the bottom of the project; for 
I will not suspect that the noble lord meant noth¬ 
ing but merely to delude the nation by an airy 
phantom which he never intended to realize. But 
whatever his views may be; as I propose the peace 
and union of the colonies as the very foundation 
of my plan, it cannot accord with one whose 
foundation is perpetual discord. 

Compare the two. This I offer to give you is 
plain and simple. The other full of perplexed and 
intricate mazes. This is mild; that harsh. This 
is found by experience effectual for its purposes; 
the other is a new project. This is universal; the 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 115 


other calculated for certain colonies only. This is 
immediate in its conciliatory operation; the other 
remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mine is what 
becomes the dignity of a ruling people; gratuitous, 
unconditional, and not held out as matter of bar¬ 
gain and sale. I have done my duty in proposing 
it to you. I have indeed tired you by a long dis¬ 
course; but this is the misfortune of those to 
whose influence nothing will be conceded, and who 
must win every inch of their ground by argument. 
You have heai’d roe with goodness. May you 
decide with wisdom! For my part, I feel my mind 
greatly disburthened by what I have done to-day. 
I have been the less fearful of trying your patience, 
because on this subject I mean to spare it altogether 
in future. I have this comfort, that in every stage 
of the American affairs, I have steadily opposed 
the measures that have produced the confusion, 
and may bring on the destruction of this empire. 
I now go so far as to risk a proposal of my own. 
If I cannot give peace to my country, I give it to 
my conscience. 

[133] But what (says the flnancier) is peace to us with¬ 
out money? Your plan gives us no revenue. No! 
But it does—For it secures to the subject the 
power of 'REFUSAL; the flrst of all revenues. 
Experience is a cheat, and fact a liar, if this power 
in the subject of proportioning his grant, or of not 
gi’anting at all, has not been found the richest 
mine of revenue ever discovered by the skill or by 


116 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 

the fortune of man. It does not indeed vote you 
£152,750: 11: 2|ths, nor any other paltry limited 
sum.—But it gives the strong box itself, the fund, 
the bank, from whence only revenues can arise 
amongst a people sensible of freedom: Posita 
luditur area} Cannot you in England; cannot 
you at this time of day; cannot you, a House of 
Commons, trust to the principle which has raised 
so mighty a revenue, and accumulated a debt of 
near 140 millions in this country? Is this prin¬ 
ciple to be true in England, and false everywhere 
else? Is it not true in Ireland? Has it not 
hitherto been true in the colonies? Why should 
you presume, that, in any country, a body duly 
constituted for any function, will neglect to per¬ 
form its duty, and abdicate its trust? Such a 
presumption would go against all governments in 
all modes. But, in truth, this dread of penury of 
supply, from a free assembly, has no foundation in 
nature. For first observe, that, besides the desire 
which all men have naturally of supporting the 
honour of their own government, that sense of 
dignity, and that security to property, which ever 
attends freedom, has a tendency to increase the 
stock of the free community. Most may be taken 
where most is accumulated. And what is the soil 
or climate where experience has not uniformly 
proved, that the voluntary fiow of heaped-up 

^ The strong-box (the whole fortune) is put up as a 
stake.— Juvenal, Satires, I, 90, 



BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 117 

plenty, bursting from the weight of its own rich 
luxuriance, has ever run with a more copious 
stream of revenue, than could b^squeezed from the 
dry husks of oppressed indige'^ce, by the straining 
of all the politic machinery in the world. 

[134] Next we know, that parties must ever exist inji 
free country. We know, too, that the emulations 
of such parties, their contradictions, their reciprocal 
necessities, their hopes, and their fears, must send 
them all in their turns to him that holds the bal¬ 
ance of the state. The parties are the gamesters; 
but government keeps the table, and is sure to be 
the winner in the end. When this game is played, 
I really think it is more to be feared that the 
people will be exhausted, than that government 
will not be supplied. Whereas, whatever is got by 
acts of absolute power ill obeyed, because odious, 
or by contracts ill kept, because constrained, will 
be narrow, feeble, uncertain, and precarious. 

Ease would retract 
Vows made in pain, as violent and void. 

[ 135 ] I, for one, protest against compounding our 
demands: I declare against compounding for a 
poor limited sum, the immense, evergrowing, 
eternal debt, which is due to generous government 
from protected freedom. And so may I speed in 
the great object I propose to you, as I think it 
would not only be an act of injustice, but would 
be the worst economy in the world, to compel the 


118 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


colonies to a sum certain, either in the way of ran¬ 
som, or in the way of compulsory compact. 

[136] But to clear up my ideas on this subject—a 
revenue from America transmitted hither—do not 
delude yourselves—^you never can receive it—No, 
not a shilling. We have experience that from 
remote countries it is not to be expected. If, 
when you attempted to extract revenue from 
Bengal, you were obliged to return in loan what 
you had taken in imposition; what can you expect 
from North America? For certainly, if ever there 
was a country qualified to produce wealth, it is 
India; or an institution fit for the transmission, it 
is the East India Company. America has none of 
these aptitudes. If America gives you taxable 
objects, on which you lay your duties here, and 
gives you, at the same time, a surplus by a foreign 
sale of her commodities to pay the duties on these 
objects, which you tax at home, she has performed 
her part to the British revenue. But with regard 
to her own internal establishments; she may, I 
doubt not she will, contribute in moderation. I 
say in moderation; for she ought not to be per¬ 
mitted to exhaust herself. She ought to be 
reserved to a war; the w^eight of which, with the 
enemies that we are most likely to have, must he 
considerable in her quarter of the globe. There 
she may serve you, and serve you essentially. 

[137] For that service, for all service, whether of 
revenue, trade, or empire, my trust is in her inter- 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION HO 


est in the British constitution. My hold of the 
colonies is in the close affection which grows from 
common names, from kindi’ed blood, from similar 
privileges, and equal protection. These are ties, 
which, though light as air, are as strong as links 
of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of 
their civil rights associated with your government; 
—^they will cling and grapple to you; and no force 
under heaven will he of power to tear them from 
their allegiance. But let it be once understood, 
that your government may he one thing, and their 
privileges another; that these two things may exist 
without any mutual relation; the cement is gone; 
the coh^on is loosened; and everything hastens to 
decay and dissolution^ As long as you have the 
wisdofn to keep the sovereign authority of this 
country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred 
temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever 
the chosen race and sons of England worship free¬ 
dom, they will turn their faces towards you. The 
more they multiply, the more friends you will 
have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more 
perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can 
have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every 
soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have 
it from Prussia. But, until you become lost to all 
feeling of your true interest and your natural 
dignity, freedom they can have from none but you. 
This is the commodity of price, of which you have 
the monopoly. This is the true act of navigation, 


120 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


which binds to you the commerce of the colonies, 
and through them secures to you the wealth of the 
world. Deny them this participation of freedom, 
and you break that sole bond, which originally 
made, and must still preserve, the unity of the 
empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination, 
as that your registers and your bonds, your affi¬ 
davits and your sufferances, your cockets and your 
clearances, are what form the great securities of 
your commerce. Do not dream that your letters 
of office, and your instructions, and your suspend¬ 
ing clauses^are the things that hold together the 
/ great contexture of the mysterious whole. These 
things do not make your government. Dead 
instruments, passive tools as they are, it is the spirit 
of the English communion that gives all their life 
and efficacy to them. It is the spirit of the Eng- 
V lish constitution, which, infu'^ed through the 
mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, 
vivifies every part of the empire, even down to the 
minutest member. 

[ 138 ] Is it not the same virtue which does everything 
for us here in England? Do you imagine then, 
that it is the land tax act which raises your revenue? 
that it is the annual vote in the committee of 
supply which gives you your army? or that it is the 
mutiny bill which inspires it with bravery and 
discipline? No! surely no! It is the love of the 
people; it is their attachment to their government, 
from the sense of the deep stake they have in such 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 121 


a glorious institution, which gives you your army 
and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal 
obedience, without which your army would be a 
base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten 
timber. 

[139] All this, I know well enough, will sound wild 
and chimerical to the profane herd of those vul¬ 
gar and mechanical politicians, who have no place 
among us; a sort of people who think that nothing 
exists but what is gross and material; and who 
therefore, far from being qualified to be directors 
of the great movement of empire, are not fit to 
turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly 
initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and 
master principles, which, in the opinion of such 
men as I have mentioned, have no substantial 
existe^e, are in truth ever 3 rthing, and all in all. 
Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest 
wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill 
together. If we are conscious of our situation and 
glow with zeal to fill our place as becomes our 
station and ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our 
public proceedings on America with the old warn¬ 
ing of the church, Sursum corda!^ We ought to 
elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to 
which the order of Providence has called us. By 
^ adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our 
ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a 
glorious empire; and have made the most extensive. 


Lift up your hearts. 



122 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


and the only honourable conquests, not by destroy¬ 
ing, but by promoting the wealth, the number, 
the happiness of the human race. Let us get an 
American revenue as we have got an American 
empire. English privileges have made it all that 
it is; English privileges alone will make it all it 
can be. 

[140] In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I 
now [quod felix faustumque sity lay the first stone 
of the temple of peace; and I move you, 

“That the colonies and plantations of Great 
Britain in North America, consisting of fourteen 
separate governments, and containing two millions 
and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the 
liberty and privilege of electing and sending 
any knights and burgesses, or others, to represent 
them in the high court of parliament.” 


[141] Upon this resolution, the previous question was 
put, and carried;—for the previous question 270, 

, against it 78. 

[142] As the propositions were opened separately in the 
body of the speech, the reader perhaps may wish 
to see the whole of them together, in the form in 
which they were moved for. The first four motions 
and the last had the previous question put on them. 
The others were negatived. The words in italics 
were, by amendment, left out of the motion. 


^ May it be happy and fortunate. 





BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 123 


^‘Moved, 

[143] “That the colonies and plantations of Great 
Britain in North America, consisting of fourteen 
-separate governments, and containing two millions 
and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the 
liberty and privilege of electing and sending any 
knights and burgesses, or others, to represent 
them in the high court of parliament. ” 

[144] “That the said colonies and plantations have 
been made liable to, and bounden by, several sub¬ 
sidies, payments, rates, and taxes, given and 
granted by parliament; though the said colonies 
and plantations have not their knights and bur¬ 
gesses, in the said high court of parliament, of 
their own election, to represent the condition 
of their country; hy lacJc whereof, they have been 
oftentimes touched and grieved hy subsidies given, 
granted, and assented to, in the said court, in a 
manner prejudicial to the commonwealth, quiet¬ 
ness, rest, and peace, of the subjects inhabiting 
ivithin the same^ 

[145] “That from the distance of the said colonies, 
and from other circumstances, no method hath 
hitherto been devised for procuring a representa¬ 
tion in parliament for the said colonies.” 

[146] “That each of the said colonies hath within 
itself a body, chosen, in part or in the whole, by 
the freemen, freeholders, or other free inhabitants 
thereof, commonly called the general assembly, or 
general court; with powers legally to raise, levy, 


124 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION' 


and assess, according to the several usage of such 
colonies, duties and taxes towai’ds defraying all 
sorts of public services.” 

[147] “That the said general assemblies, general 
courts, or other bodies, legally qualified as afore¬ 
said, have at sundry times freely granted several 
large subsidies and public aids for his Majesty’s 
service, according to their abilities, when required 
thereto by letter from one of his Majesty’s prin¬ 
cipal secretaries of state; and that their right to 
grant the same, and their cheerfulness and 
sufficiency in the said grants, have been at sundry 
times acknowledged by parliament.” 

[148] “That it hath been found by experience, that 
the manner of granting the said supplies and aids, 
by the said general assemblies, hath been more 
agreeable to the inhabitants of the said colonies, 
and more beneficial and conducive to the public 
service, than the mode of giving and granting aids 
and subsidies in parliament to be raised and paid 
in the said colonies.” 

[149] “That it may be proper to repeal an act, made 
in the seventh year of the reign of his present 
Majesty, intituled. An act for granting certain 
duties in the British colonies and plantations in 
America; for allowing a drawback of the duties of 
customs, upon the exportation from this kingdom, 
of coffee and cocoa-nuts, of the produce of the said 
colonies or plantations; for discontinuing the 
drawbacks payable on China earthenware exported 


BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 125 


to America; and for more effectually preventing 
the clandestine running of goods in the said colo¬ 
nies and plantations. 

[150] “That it may be proper to repeal an act, made 
in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present 
Majesty, intituled, An act to discontinue, in such 
manner, and for such time, as are therein men¬ 
tioned, the landing and discharging, lading or 
shipping of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the 
town, and within the harbour of Boston, in the 
province of Massachusetts Bay, in Korth America. ” 

[151] “That it may be proper to repeal an act, made 
in the fourteenth year of the reign of his present 
Majesty, intituled. An act for the impartial admin¬ 
istration of justice, in cases of persons questioned 
for any acts done by them in the execution of the 
law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults in the 
province of Massachusetts Bay, in Kew England.’' 

[152] “That it is proper to repeal an act, made in the 
fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, 
intituled. An act for the better regulating the gov¬ 
ernment of the province of Massachusetts Bay, in 
New England. ’ ’ 

[153] “That it is proper to explain and amend an act 
made in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King 
Henry VIII., intituled. An act for the trial of 
treasons committed out of the king’s dominions.” 

[154] * ^That, from the time when the general assembly, 
or general court, of any colony or plantation, in 
North America, shall have appointed, by act of 


126 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 



assembly duly confirmed, a settled salary to the 
offices of the chief justice and other judges of the 
superior courts, it may be proper that the said 
chief justice and other judges of the superior 
courts of such colony shall hold his and their office 
and offices during their good behaviour; and 
shall not be removed therefrom, but when the said 
removal shall be adjudged by his Majesty in 
council, upon a hearing on complaint from the 
general assembly, or on a complaint from the 
governor, or council, or the house of represent¬ 
atives, severally, of the colony in which the said 
chief justice and other judges have exercised the 
said office.” 

“That it may be proper to regulate the courts 
of admiralty, or vice-admiralty, authorized by the 
fifteenth chapter of the fourth of George III., in 
such a manner, as to make the same more com¬ 
modious to those who sue, or are sued, in the said 
courts; and to provide for the more decent 
maintenance of the judges of the sameJ''^ 




QUESTIONS ON THE LITERARY AND RHETORI¬ 
CAL QUALITIES OF THE SPEECH ON 
CONCILIATION 

One reading of the speech, preferably the first 
or the second, should be devoted to a study of the 
literary and rhetorical qualities. The following 
questions are intended merely to indicate topics for 
study. The work may be extended as time, and 
the attainments of the class permit. The order 
of the questions is perhaps not the best for all 
classes. Some of the questions may he assigned 
for reports or brief essays. Numbers in parentheses 
refer to paragraphs of the speech: 

1. What power over words is seen in the use of 
event (1), delicate (2), comprehend (4), capital 
(12), occasional (16), auspicious (25), the genius^ 
(25), determine (36), sensibly{d^)^ auspicate 
(139)? Compare the etymological meaning of 
these words with their usual meaning. 

2. What argumentative or persuasive force is 
there in the use of squahhling (10), auction {10)^ 
indifferently (13), partial (16), occasional (16), 
adored (38)? Find other single words which 
condense a whole argument. 

3. One element of Burke’s power is his use of 
specific, concrete, incisive terms. Find examples 

127 


128 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


in (42) last sentence, (43), (50), (56), or other 
paragi’aphs. 

4. What characteristic of vocabulary is seen in 
^such a pass (5), play the game out (5), produce our 

hand (5), gave so far in to (6), a good while (8), 
knock down the hammer (10), shot a good deal (12), 
smartness of delate (42), mighty loell (42), have 
done the business (45), are wished to (99)? 
Find other examples. 

5. The words which Burke uses close together 
fit one another’s meaning; as, “In this posture 
things stood'' (5). While his phraseology is not 
always smooth and nice, he makes effective phrases. 
Find illustrations in (25), (66), and (72), or in 
other paragraphs. 

6. What does Burke’s phraseology owe to the 
English Bible? 

7. Similes, metaphors, and tropes (slightly 
figurative turns of expression) are very numerous 
in all of Burke’s writings. Cite a few examples 
, from this speech. 

I 8. Burke uses a good many reference words and 
words of tr'^sition and connection to make it easy 
for the reader to follow his course of reasoning. 
Mark all there are in (36). Note words and 
phrases of transition at the beginning of many 
paragraphs. 

9. What evidences of the oratorical temperament 
are seen in the diction of (1), (4), (15), (25), (30), 
(43), (45)? 


RHETORICAL QUALITIES 


129 


10. Does Burke use the rhetorical question and 
the exclamation? 

11. Bind cases of parallelism and balance in 
sentences. A case of climax. Notice in the Brief 
Proper the forward march of the three main 
propositions. 

12. Find a wise political maxim expressed in a 
short sentence in (10), in (13), (45), (59), (65), 
(66), (83), (88), (96), (120), and (139). 

13. Examine the variety in length and structure 
and kinds of sentences in (25), (45), (55), (56). 

14. What characteristics of the introduction are 
perhaps explained by the fact that he knew his 
audience to be strongly opposed to his views? 

15. Do you find that usually each paragraph deals 
with only one topic? that it is possible to state 
the principal thought of each paragraph in a single 
sentence? What quality of composition is indi¬ 
cated by these facts? 

16. In (59) point out the sentence which best 
expresses the topic. Show how each of the other 
sentences introduces, or proves, or repeats, or 
explains, or exemplifies, the main idea. 

17. Show in what orderly sequence the ideas of 
(60) come along. Make a list of them. Notice 
the proportion of space and the relative prominence 
given to each of them. Do these correspond with 
their importance relatively to the thought? 

18. In the group (47-64) have we the inductive 
or the deductive order of thought? How is it in 


130 BUEKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 

most of the speech? Is Burke’s plan fully 
announced at the beginning? Are we kept in sus¬ 
pense as to just what Burke wants? Where do we 
find out in full? 

19. In (47) Burke says he “would patiently go 
round and round the subject, and survey it 
minutely in every possible aspect.” Burke has 
been accused of making too many fine distinctions in 
his speeches. Do you think the criticism just? Is 
there a distinction made in this speech that is unnec- 
essai’y to the argument? Consult the Brief Proper. 

20. Do you find any passages that would sound 
too highly oratorical in a speech nowadays? How 
about the Latin quotations? 

21. Notice a few of the quotations and allusions 
and see if there is not a bit of argument or persua¬ 
sion concealed in each of them. Point it out. 
Can you find any purely ornamental passage in 
this speech? 

22. What passages in this speech indicate espe¬ 
cially that Burke was a believer in the ‘ ‘sacredness 
of law,” and that he reverenced the past? How 
often does he appeal to experience as proof of what 
he says? 

23. If you had read nothing about Burke the 
man, could you tell from this speech what some of 
his personal qualities (mental, moral, religious) 
must have been? Could you tell also whether or 
not he had read much? what his favorite hooks 
were? what his political ideals were? 


RHETORICAL QUALITIES 


131 


24. Matthew Arnold says that Burke “is so 
great because, almost alone in England, he brings 
thought to bear upon politics; he saturates politics 
with thought.” Of what passage in this speech 
does this statement seem to you to be especially 
true? 

25. “Burke bases his reasoning on facts in 
human nature. ” Verify this. 

26. Professor Goodrich says that the secret of 
Burke’s richness of thought “consisted, to a great 
extent, in his habit of viewing things in their 
causes, or tracing them out in their results.'*'^ 
Verify. 

27. Report the steps in the reductio aa absurdum 
in (70-73). 

28. What form of argument is used in (81) and 
(88)? Notice the use of words of comparison, 
more, less, as, as much. 

29. Do you find evidences of a powerful imagi¬ 
nation in this speech? Do you find any poetic 
touches? 

30. Which of the following adjectives might be 
used truthfully in speaking of the style of Burke’s 
Speech on Gonciliationf Cite passages in sup¬ 
port of your answer. Suggestive, picturesque, 
pathetic, sublime, serious, sincere, Tceen, judicious, 
ironical, beautiful, grand, clehr, emphatic, pre¬ 
cise, simple, colloquial, harsh, intense, diffuse, 
repetitious^ 


A STUDY OF THE LOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE 
SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 

One reading, preferably the second or the third, 
may profitably be devoted exclusively to a study of 
the logical structure of the speech, to an examina¬ 
tion of the arguments separately and in their 
inter-relations. Experience has shown that the 
arguments will be best appreciated if the para¬ 
graphs are condensed into sentences and these 
sentences are arrayed according to their rank 
in the argumentative scheme. This kind of 
work is difiicult, but rewards the pupil by giv¬ 
ing him a comprehension of the argument such as 
he can hardly gain in any other way. Fully one- 
half of the time devoted to this speech may profit¬ 
ably be spent in the making of a Brief. The 
following suggestions are intended to afford the 
pupil needed help towards making his Brief. A 
Brief of Burke’s introduction to the speech is 
given in full in order to illustrate the form 
preferred. Complete sentences, reading as rea¬ 
sons, should everywhere be insisted upon. The 
numbers given below in parentheses refer to 
paragraphs of the speech. Directions to the 
pupil are in brackets. Material not in brackets 
stands as part of the final Brief. It will pay to 

138 


LOGICAL STRUCTURE 


133 


adhere to the form and system of numoering sug¬ 
gested, and to draw off a comjMe Brief. Before 
beginning to make the Brief Proper, let the pupil 
read the first fourteen paragraphs of the speech, 
comparing them one by one with the Brief of the 
introduction given below. Let him note that the 
main thought of paragraph (1) may be expressed 
in a single, complete sentence, as (I) below; that 
the same is true of (2); but that (3) and (4) belong 
together, forming a contrast; that (5), (6), (7), 
and (8) also belong together, since they give 
Burke’s excuses for speaking; that (9) gives 
Burke’s proposition; that (10), (11), (12), and (13) 
belong together because they contrast Burke’s 
plan with Lord North’s and show what advantage 
the former gains from the fact that the latter has 
been presented; that (13) also adds a new thought 
(VII below); that (14) closes the introduction by 
dividing the subject preparatory to the argument 
proper. Arranging this material in the orderly 
form of a brief, we have the following. 

INTRODUCTION 

I. The return of the grand penal bill gives Parlia¬ 
ment another opportunity to choose a plan for 
managing the American colonies (1). 

II. Having studied the subject, Burke has arrived at 
fixed ideas of imperial policy (2). 

Ill,’ Burke’s sentiments have not changed (3); but 
Parliament has frequently changed its policy, 
with disastrous results (4). 


134 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


IV. Burke ventures to address the House, for, 

A. Those opposing the ministry must now pro¬ 

duce their plan (5). 

B. Though Burke is reluctant (6), the awful 

situation makes it his duty to do good 
if he can (7). 

C. Burke’s insignificance will ensure a discus¬ 

sion of his plan wholly on its merits (8). 

V. Burke’s proposition is to secure peace by 
removing the grounds of difference (9). 

VI. Burke’s plan, simple and very different from 

Lord North’s (10), derives advantages from 
the latter’s presentation (11), for, 

A. By accepting Lord North’s plan, the House 

has voted that the idea of conciliation is 
admissible (11). 

B. By accepting Lord North’s plan, the House 

has voted that the idea of conciliation is 
admissible previous to submission by the 
colonies (12) 

C. By accepting Lord North’s plan, the House 

has voted that complaints in regard to 
taxation are not wholly rmfounded 
(13). 

D. Burke’s plan is based upon the same prin¬ 

ciple as Lord North’s, that of concilia¬ 
tion (13). 

VII. The proposal for peace ought to originate with 

England, the superior power (13). 

VHI. The two leading questions are: "Whether Eng¬ 
land ought to concede; and, What the con¬ 
cession should be; the determination of which 
depends upon the actual condition and circum¬ 
stances of America and not upon abstractions 
or theories (14). 


LOGICAL STRUCTURE 135 

BRIEF PROPER 

A. . England Should Conciliate the American 

Colonies (15-64), for, 

I. The nature and condition of America require 

conciliation (15), for—[Read (15-30), and having 
discovered A, B, C and D, set them down in 
complete sentences reading as reasons for I. 
Follow the form of the Introduction VI]. 

II. Those who advocate force against America are' 
wrong (31), for—[Read (32-35), and having 
found the reasons, set them down as before]. 

III. [Express (36) in form similar to I above. A (37) 

is followed by reasons, which should be marked 
1, 2, etc.] 

IV. This unnatural contention has shaken all fixed 

principles of government (45-46), for—[Mark 
the three evil effects A, B and C]. 

V. Of the only three ways of dealing with America, 
we must adopt the third (47), for, 

A. The first way (to remove the causes of the 

American spirit) is impossible (48-57) for 
—[Find the reasons, marking them 1, 2, 
etc., and if reasons for 1, or 2, etc., are 
given, mark them a, b, c, etc.]. 

B. [Supply the thought. Keep the form of 

sentence used for A just above. ] 

. * C. The third way, to comply with the Ameri¬ 
can spirit, v)|p must, therefore, adopt (64). 

B. The Measures of Conciliation Adopted Should 

Satisfy the American Complaint against 
Taxation (65-88), for, 

I. To please any people, you must give them the 
boon they ask (65). 

II. To refuse satisfaction on the ground of a legal 


136 BURKE’S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 


right to tax is illogical (66), for—[Read (66-68) 
to find reasons. Reason A is implied in the 
questions in (66)]. 

III. [Express (70) in the form of sentence used in II, 

just above, “To refuse,” etc. Read (71-74) for 
reasons.] ‘ 

IV. [Express (75) in the form of sentence used in II. 

Reason A (last sentence of 75). Reason B (76).] 

V. Such satisfaction would be in accordance with 
four great constitutional precedents (77-78), for 
—[Phrase A, B, C, D, (79-87), and E (88), with 
reasons, if any are given, under each]. 

C. Satisfaction of the American Complaint Is 
Possible without Granting Representation 
IN Parliament (89 and 90), for, 

I. Parliament would give satisfaction (in part) by 
ceasing to impose taxes and declaring the 
competency of colonial grants (91), and record¬ 
ing its belief in the following resolutions (92-93). 

A. That the colonies are not represented in 

Parliament (93). 

B. That the colonies have been grieved by 

taxes (94-95), for, 

1, It is a grievance to be hurt in one’s privi¬ 
leges, irrespective of ‘the money involved 
(96). [Supply 2, 3, etc., from the rest of 
paragraph (96).] 

[C (97), D (98), D 1 (99), E (100), E 1 (100-105), 

' F (106-108).] ^ ‘ . 

II. Parliament would give satisfaction (in part) also 
f by repealing the Acts named in the-Resolution 

(109), for, 

A. The Boston Port BilPis unjust (110) for— 
[Find in (110) two reasons, 1 and 2]. 

[B (111), C (112), D (113), with reasons, if 
any are given.] 


LOGICAL STRUCTURE 


13? 


III. [Read (114-118). Express the thought in the form 

of sentence used in I and II, just above.] 

IV. The argument that the grievance of taxation 

extends to all legislation cannot stand (118), 
for—[Read to (121), finding reasons]. 

V. [Express (122) in the form of sentence used in IV, 
just above.] 

VI. The foregoing plan of satisfying the American 
complaint is better than Lord North’s (123). 
for—[Read (124-132), drawing off the reasons]. 

VII. [Express (133) in the form of IV, just above. Find 
reasons.] '* 

CONCLUSION 

I. The real ties that bind the colonies to the Empire 
are not laws, but ties of loyalty and affection 
(137-138). 

II. [Find in paragraph (139) a single sentence that 
expresses the thought.] 

III. Burke therefore moves the following resolution 
[as given in (140-155)]. 


NOTES 


H [1] Sir. The Speaker of the House of Commons. 

austerity of the Chair. The severe impartiality of the 
speaker. 

my motioji. At the end of the speech. 

grand penal bill. Lord North’s bill (proposed Feb. 10,1775) 
entitled “An Act to restrain the Commerce of the Provinces 
of Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire, and Colonies 
of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and Providence Planta¬ 
tion, in North America, to Great Britain, Ireland, and the 
British Islands in the West Indies; and to prohibit such 
Provinces and Colonies from carrying on any Fishery on 
the Banks of Newfoundland, and other places therein 
mentioned, under ^certain conditions and limitations.” By 
this bill thousands of New England fishermen were to be 
reducedto beggary, 

is to be returned to us. The Lords wanted the bill amended 
so that it should apply to other American colonies besides 
those of New England. 

mixture of coercion andrestraint. A contemptuous name for 
the Grand Penal Bill, incongruous with conciliation. Burke 
cannot mean that coercion is incongruous with restraint. 

H [2] blown about. Ephesians iv, 14. In this and adjacent 
lines Burke refers to the rapid changes of opinion in and 
out of Parliament as to the best way to deal with the col¬ 
onies. Parliament passed the Stamp Act one year and 
repealed it the next. 

TI [3] At that period. The repeal of the Stamp Act. The 
vote stood 275 for the repeal, 161 against. 

H [4] Everything administered as remedy. The Tea-Tax, 
Boston Port Bill, Massachusetts Colony Bill, Transporta¬ 
tion Bill, and Quebec Act. 

hei' present situation. The colonies were preparing for war. 
Lexington was fought within a month. 

138 


NOTES 


139 


H [5] a worthy member. Mr. Eose Fuller. A year before, 
Burke had delivered his speech on American Taxation on 
a motion by Mr. Fuller to repeal the tax on tea. 

American committee. The whole House of Commons sit¬ 
ting as a committee on American affairs. A “ committee 
of the whole ” chooses its own chairman—some member, 
not the speaker. 

our former methods. The methods of “ the opposition,” 
(the minority party or parties) which had been confined to 
criticism of measures proposed by the ministry (chosen 
from the majority party). 

platform. Plan. 

TI [6] seat of authority. Here means the government min¬ 
istry. 

disreputably. Ill-timed propositions discredit the maker 
of them. 

T1 [7] paper government. Merely on paper, theoretical, in¬ 
capable of being put into operation because not practical. 
A reference perhaps to the scheme of government which 
the philosopher Locke drew up for Carolina. 

separated from the execution. A plan which is not to be 
executed bv the one who drafted it. 

'my caution. My disinclination to bring forward a plan. 

laid hold on. 1 Timothy vi, 19. Hebrews vi, 18. 

[8J natural. Arising from ability, adventitious. Aris¬ 
ing from rank, title, wealth, or other external circum¬ 
stance. 

^ [9] discord fomented from principle. Burke refers to the 
principle underlying Lord North’s project (see note on 
U 10) to weaken the colonies by dividing them into two 
classes. 

juridical. Purely legal and technical, without reference 
to equity and justice. Compare If 66. 

shadowy boundaries. Limits of power in regard to the 
right to tax. The Tories held that the right to tax the 
colonies was implied in Parliament’s general right of legis¬ 
lation. The radical Whigs held to the contrary. The 
Whigs of Burke’s type waived the question of legal right 
and declared that it was inexpedient to tax the colonies, 
whether Parliament had the legal right, or not. 


140 


NOTES 


unsuspectmg conjideyice. Italicized because used by the 
Congress at Philadelphia in 1774 to express the state 
of feeling- in the colonies after the repeal of the Stamp 
Act. 

1 [10] the project. February 20,1775, Lord North brought 
in resolutions, entitled “ Propositions for Conciliating the 
Differences with America,” which were agreed to by the 
House February 27, as follows; “That when the governor, 
council, or^ssembly, or general court, of any of his Majes¬ 
ty’s provinces or colonies in America, shall propose to 
make provision, according to the condition, circumstances, 
and situation of such province or colony, for contributing 
their proportion to the common defense (such proportion 
to be raised under the authority of the general court or 
general assembly of such province or colony, and dispos¬ 
able by Parliament), and shall engage to make pi’ovision 
also for the support of the civil government and the ad¬ 
ministration of justice, in such province or colony, it will 
be proper, if such proposal shall be approved by his 
Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament, and for 
so long as such provision shall be made accordingly, 
to forbear, in respect of such province or colony, to levy 
any duty, tax, or assessment, or to impose any further 
duty, tax, or assessment, except such duties as it may be 
expedient to continue to levy or impose, for regulation of 
commerce; the net produce of the duties last mentioned 
to be carried to the account of such province or colony 
respectively.” 

nobU lord Lord North, a Knight of the Garter, wore the 
badge of that order, a blue ribbon. 

colony agents, The colonies not having direct representa¬ 
tion in Parliament engaged agents to watch legislation 
and otherwise look after, colony interests there. Frank¬ 
lin was once such an agent for Pennsylvania, Massachu¬ 
setts, Maryland, and Georgia, and Burke himself was 
agent for New York for a short time. 

II [11] registry. In the House journals. 
resolution. Lord North’s project. The advantage lay in 
the use of the word ‘‘ conciliating ” in the title of Lord 
North’s resolutions. 


NOTES 


141 


menacing front of our address. Feb. 9, 1775, Parliament 
had presented an address to the king declaring that no 
part of his authority over the colonies should be relin¬ 
quished. For the use of fronts see Othello I, iii, 80. 

bills of pains and penalties. Two of these bills were the 
Boston Port Bill and the Grand Penal Bill. 
ideas of free grace. Voluntary concessions. 

If [12] it has declared . . . and has admitted. By the 
very fact of agreeing to Lord North’s resolutions. 

^ [13] I shall endeavour to show. See *lf 124 to *[f 131. 

If [14] the object. The colonies. 

Tf [16] minima.' Trifles. Be minimis non, curat leXy the law 
takes no account of trifles. The logical subject of this 
sentence is America. 

If [17] ground has been trod. The matter has been dis¬ 
cussed. some days ago. March 16. 
person. Mr. Glover, esteemed a poet in his day. 
at your bar. The bar is a rod across the entry to the 
chamber in which Parliament sits. Members and oflBcers 
alone are admitted within the bar. 

If [19] comparative state. A statement making compari¬ 
sons. 

on your tabic. OfiScially before you. 

Bavenant. Appointed inspector-general of exports and 
imports in 1705. 

If [20] Tlie African. The slave trade, principally; hence 
rightfully regarded by Burke as a branch of England’s 
export trade to the colonies, since the slaves were taken to 
the colonies and sold. 

If [25] It is good, etc. Mark ix, 5. 

Clouds, indeed, etc. Addison, Cato V, i: — 

The wide th’ unbounded Prospect lies before me 
And Shadow's, Clouds, and Darkness, rest upon it. 
Lord Bathurst. Born 1684; took his seat in Parliament in 
1705; died Sept., 1775. 
angel. The guardian angel. 

the fourth generation, the third prince. George the Third was 
the grandson of George the Second. 

made Great Britain. By the Act of Union (1707) England 
and Scotland became one. 


142 


NOTES 


higher rank. Bathurst was made Earl in 1772. 

a new one. His son was made Lord Chancellor with the 
title of Baron Apsley the year previous. 

taste of death. Matthew xvi, 28. 

T[ [28] deceive the burthen. Lighten the burden by beguil¬ 
ing the burden-bearer. A Latinism {fallere). 

1[ [29] com. Grain. 

Roman charity, etc. A reference to an old Boman story, 
one version of which is that Cymon, having 'been con¬ 
demned to die by starvation, was kept alive by his daughter 
Xanthippe, who visited him in prison and nourished him 
from her own breasts. 

U [30] Ser 2 oent. A constellation within the Antarctic 
Circle. 

Falkland Island .... national amhition. Spain and Eng¬ 
land disputed the ownership of these islands in 1770. Many 
Englishmen thought them not worth fighting for. Spain 
yielded before war broke out. These islands were supply 
stations for whalers. 

run the longitude. Literally, sail east or west; here, south¬ 
west. 

vexed. Agitated. A Latinism (vezare). 

H [31] complexions. Temperament. 

military art. Several army men in the House, including 
General Burgoyne, had made speeches advocating the use 
of force against the colonies. 

wield the thunder. An allusion to Jupiter and his thunder¬ 
bolts. Lord North as prime minister might be said to 
“wield the thunder of the state.” 

H [34] British strength. The colonists were Englishmen. 
It was for their rights as Englishmen that they were con¬ 
tending. 

a foreign enemy. France or Spain might take advantage 
of England when England was engaged in war with her 
colonies. 

H [35] Our ancient indulgence. Our former kindness to 
the colonies. 

our penitence. Our recent policy of coercion. 

T[ [37] restive. Properly means stubborn. Here used in 
the sense of restless. 



NOTES 


143 


H [38] when. In the times preceding the establishment 
of the Commonwealth. 

sensible object. An object capable of being perceived by 
the senses. 

ancient commonwealths. Eome and the states of Greece. 

several orders. Several ranks or classes of the people. 

greatest spirits. Pym, Hampden, Vane. 

T[ [39] popular. Controlled by the people. 

TI [40] of that kind. Dissenters from the Church of Eng¬ 
land. 

dissidence of dissent. Dissent carried to the extreme. 
Matthew Arnold uses this phrase (of Hooker’s) in Culture 
and Anarchy^ ch. I, 21. 

the establishments. The state churches. 

H [41] Gothic. Teutonic. 

were the Poles. Burke uses the past tense were because 
he is speaking of the Poles before 1772, the year of the 
Partition of Poland between Austria, Russia and Prus¬ 
sia. 

1 [42] by successful chicane. Gen. Gage forbade the col¬ 
onists from calling any town meetings after August 1, 
1774. They evaded the order by adjourning over the first 
to a time definite; by continuing this process of keeping 
alive the same adjourned meeting they obviated the neces¬ 
sity of calling a meeting. Consult Hosmer, Samuel Adams. 
322-323. 

friend. Thurlow, the attorney-general, who was taking 
notes of Burke’s speech, on the floor. The lowest tier of 
benches, occupied by members of the cabinet. 

U [43] winged ministers of vengeance. Ships, which are 
compared to the eagle that carried Jupiter’s thunderbolts 
in its pounces, or talons. 

So far Shalt thou go. Job xxxviii, 11. 

If [45] with all its imperfections^ etc. • Hamlet I, v. 

Lord Dunmore. Governor of Virginia 

Tf [46] abrogated the ancient government of Massachusetts. 
In 1774, an act of Parliament forbade the people of Massa¬ 
chusetts to hold town meetings except by permission of 
the royal governor; gave to the royal governor the power 
to appoint and remove at pleasure all judges and magis- 


144 


NOTES 


trates, including’ sheriffs, and charg’ed the sheriffs with 
the duty of summoning’jurymen. The object was of course 
to make the courts mere creatures of the royal will. 

1[ [47] inconvenient. Troublesome. 

giving up the colonies. This was seriously proposed and de¬ 
fended by Dr. Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, in 1774, on the 
ground that England would have the trade of the colonies 
whether she owned them or not, if she offered them the best 
markets. 

[60] English Tartars . The allusion is to the hordes of 
Tartars and Mongols who under Genghis Khan (1160-1227) 
and Timour (1336-1405) swept over Asia, conquering as they 
went. 

Increase and multiply. Paradise Lost X, 730. Genesis i, 
28. 

children of men. Psalms cxv, 16. 

wax and parchment. Legal forms. 

If [53] your speech. Matthew xxvi, 73. Judges xii, 6. 

If [54] hum their hooks. Acts xix, 19. 

chargeable. Expensive. 

If [55] has had its advocates. Dr. Johnson in his pam. 
phlet. Taxation no Tyranny, favored this plan. In 1775, 
Governor Dunmore of Virginia threatened to try this plan. 

other people. For instance, the Romans after Cannae 
armed 8,000 slaves and allowed them to earn their freedom 
by valor. 

If [56] their refusal. In the years preceding the Revolu¬ 
tion attempts were repeatedly made by the legislatures of 
Virginia and other southern colonies to restrict the slave 
trade, but the English government prevented the restriction 
each time, in the interest of English traders. 

Angola. On the west coast of Africa. Noted for its 
activity in the slave trade. 

Guinea captain. The captain of an English ship engaged 
in the Guinea trade. 

If [57] Ye gods, etc. Quoted as an example of hyperbole 
in chapter xi of The Art of Sinking in Poetry written by 
Arbuthnot, Pope and Swift. 

If [59] Sir Edward Coke. At Raleigh’s trial for treason 
(1603), Coke, then attorney general, assailed Raleigh in most 


NOTES 


145 


unjust and brutal terms: “Thou art a monster I” “Thou 
hast a Spanish heart, and thyself art a spider of hell!” 
Raleigh was accused of having a part in the plots against 
James the First. 

IT [60] ex vi termini. From the meaning of the word; 
from the force of the term. 

H [61] civil litigant. A party to a suit in which a right 
(not a crime) is the subject of dispute; in this case, England’s 
right to tax the colonies, a culprit. Because, if Parliament 
decides that it has the right to tax, America is criminal in 
resisting. 

H [62] those very persons. The majority in Parliament. 

declaring a rebellion. February 9, 1775. 

formerly addressed. February 13, 1769. addressed. Pe¬ 
titioned the king. 

1[ [66] startle. Are startled. Startle is now used transi¬ 
tively. 

great Serbonian bog, etc. Paradise Lost II, 592-594. The 
great Serbonian bog is Lake Serbonis between Damiata, a 
town near the mouth of the Nile and Mt. Casius, on the coast 
farther east. 

If [67] unity of spirit. Ephesians iv, 3. 

If [69] a revenue act. The Stamp Act, repealed in 1766. 

understood principle. As an act for raising revenue, not 
for controlling trade. 

Tf [70] American financiers. Members of ^Parliament 
who still think America can be made to yield England a 
revenue. 

have further views. Will keep asking for further conces¬ 
sions. 

trade laws. The Navigation Acts were the chief trade laws. 

a gentleman, etc. Mr. Rice. 

If [71] acts of navigation. One of these acts secured to 
England the lion’s share of the carrying trade by forbidding 
every other nation to bring to England or to her colonies any 
thing but the actual products of that nation; another forbade 
the colonies to send exports, directly, anywhere except to 
England or to other English colonies; by another, all exports 
from the colonies to England must be shipped in American 
or English vessels. 


146 


NOTES 


H [73] the pamphlet. Written by Dean Tucker. See note 
to H 47. 

H [75] But the colonies will go further. The objection of 
Burke’s opponents. 

IF [78] Philip the Second. King of Spain, 1556-1598. 

English constitution. Partly defined in the preceding para¬ 
graph; not a single document like the Constitution of the 
United States, but all of the important state documents (such 
as Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights) as well as the his. 
torical traditions, precedents, long established principles, in¬ 
stitutions, and the enacted laws. . 

IF [79] English conquest. See Green, Short History of the 
English People, ch. vii, sec. viii. 

Magna Charta. See Green, Short History of the English 
People, ch. iii, secs, ii and iii. 

all Ireland. English settlers in Ireland kept within certain 
limits called the Pale. “ Beyond the Pale ” English laws and 
liberties were not enjoyed. 

Sir John Davis (or Davies) . Published in 1612 the book to 
which Burke refers, entitled Discovery of the true Causes 
why Ireland was never entirely subdued nor brought under 
Obedience of the Crown of England until the Beginning 
of his Majesty^s happy Reign. (James the First was 
king.) 

vain projects. See Green, Short History of the English 
people, ch. vii, sec viii. 

changed the people. By settling parts of Ireland with Eng¬ 
lish and Scotch. 

altered the religion. From Catholic to Protestant. 

deposed kings. Charles the First and James the Second. 

altered the succession. By the Act of Settlement (1701) the 
House of Hanover came to the throne in 1714. 

usurpation. The protectorate of Cromwell 1649-1660. 

restoration. Charles the Second, 1660. 

Revolution. In 1688 Parliament deposed James the Second 
and put William, Prince of Orange, on the throne. 

lucrative amount. Irony. 

IF [80] Henry the Third. 1216-1272. Edward the First. 
1272-1307. 

lords marchers. Lords of the marches (border-lands) be- 


NOTES 


147 


tween England and Wales. Each had the authority of a king 
in his own district, which he had conquered. 

If [81] question on the legality. Burke implies that an act 
of Parliament was required, instead of a mere instruction 
(an executive order). 

H [82] rid. Rode. 

T1 [83] day-star. 2 Peter i, 19. 

If [84] county palatine. A county in which the owner 
had royal power. 

If [85] Shown^ predicate of inhabitants. 

where. Whereas. 

disherisons. Deprivations. 

commonwealth. Common weal, common welfare. 

ne. Nor. 

1 [86] Reject it^ etc. These questions show the kind of 
treatment that had been accorded to the addresses and peti¬ 
tions of the American colonists. 

temperament. Modification. 

1 [88] Judge Barrington. Appointed justice of three 
counties in Wales in 1757. 

But your legislative authority is perfect^ etc. (So my oppo¬ 
nents say.) 

legislative authority. Authority, or legal right, to legislate. 

But America is virtually represented. (So my opponents 
mj.) virtually represented. When the radical Whigs argued 
that representation is a “ natural right” and that there could 
legally beno taxation without representation,” the Tories 
replied that America was ‘‘virtually” represented. The doc¬ 
trine of virtual representation implied that even though the 
Americans had no members of Parliament of their own 
choosing, yet Parliament as constituted represented the 
Americans since every member of Parliament is in duty 
bound to care for the interests, not merely of his own con¬ 
stituency, but of the whole empire. 

If [89]. arm - shortened. Isaiah lix, 1. 

If [90] rude swain. Milton, Comus, 634, 635. Milton 
has “duZi swain.” clouted shoon. Shoes with big-headed nails 
in the soles. 

1763. Tiie first year of the Grenville administration, which 
passed the Stamp Act. 


148 


NOTES 


IT [91] hy grant. By the voluntary contribution of the 
colonies through act of their own legislative assemblies. 
hy imposition. By a tax imposed by Parliament. 

U [92] temple of British concord. An allusion to the tem¬ 
ple which the Romans dedicated to Concord. 

If [93] fourteen. Including the Province of Quebec. 
description. The particular names. 

If [94] like unto. Matthew xxii, 39. 

If [95] touch with a tool. Exodus xx, 25. 

wise beyond what was written. 1 Corinthians iv, 6. 

form of sound words. 2 Timothy i, 13. 

If [96] the sixth (act) of George II. An act for the better 
securing of the trade of his Majesty’s sugar|colonies in America. 

Lord Hillsborough. Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
1768 to 1772. 

If [99] an aid. Originally an aid was a grant of money 
voluntarily made by a tenant to his lord. 

those who have been pleased^ etc. Grenville, Prime Minister 
1763-5, and originator of the Stamp Act. 

if the crown could be responsible. Whatever the sovereign 
of England does officially is done by the advice of his minis¬ 
ters, who are held responsible. In this sense “The King can 
do no wrong.” 

the council. The Privy Council. A body of selected advis¬ 
ers to the sovereign. 

first lords of trade. A committee of the Council. 

If [100] so high. So far back. 

If [105] misguided people. The English. 
unhappy system. That of taxing America instead of depend¬ 
ing on America’s voluntary grants. 
state. Statement. 

those untaxed people. Those who were said to 6e untaxed. 
requisitions. Demands for money addressed by the English 
Secretary of State to the colonies, to be met by voluntary 
grants. This process involved an act of the colonial legisla¬ 
tures, which might refuse a grant. Burke repeatedly insists 
on the fundamental distinction between money thus secured 
and taxes imposed by Parliament without any act of the colo¬ 
nial legislatures. 

*lf [107] utmost rights. Taxing the unrepresented. 


NOTES 


149 


another legal body. The colonial legislature. 

If [109] clandestine running. Smuggling. 

Tf [110] during the king^s pleasure. The Boston Port Bill 
provided that the King was to decide when the port should be 
reopened. 

restraining bill. Another name for the Grand Penal Bill 
See note to If 1. 

partially. Unfairly. 

^ [111] far less power. The crown did not have the veto 
power in Connecticut and Rhode Island. 

returning officer. The officer who summoned the jury. The 
object of the regulation was to secure verdicts favorable to the 
crown. 

Tf [112] temporary. The act was to continue in force three 
years from June 1,1774. 

If [116] courts of admiralty. These had jurisdiction in 
the case of offenses committed on the sea, including cases of 
smuggling, which were tried without a jury. 

more decent maintenance. These judges were paid out of 
the fines which they imposed; hence the temptation to excess¬ 
ive fines and numerous seizures. 

If [120] logical illation. In the Speech on American Tax¬ 
ation Burke uses the expression, “too much logic and too little 
sense.” 

immediate jewel. Othello, III, iii, 156. 

a great house , . . slaves haughty. Juvenal, Satires, V, 66, 
has: Maxima quaeque domus servis est plena superbis. 

Every great house is full of haughty slaves. 

cords of man. Hosea xi, 4. 

Aristotle . . . cautions us. Aristotle, Ethics, I, iii. 

IT [121] superintending legislature. In his Speech on Amer¬ 
ican Taxation Burke says: “The Parliament of Great Britain 
sits at the head of her extensive empire in two capacities: 
One as the local legislature of this island, providing for all 
things at home, immediately, and by no other instrumen 
than the executive power.—The other, and I think her nobler 
capacity, is what I call her imperial character; in which, as 
from the throne of Heaven, she superintends all the several 
inferior legislatures, and guides and controls them all, without 
annihilating any.” 


150 


NOTES 


IF [122J a separate . . . legislature. The Irish Parliament 
was abolished in 1800. See Green, Short History of the Eng- 
lish People, ch. x, sec, iv. 

IF [123] promised. See IF 13. 

the proposition of the noble lord. See note to IF 10. 

IF [125] ante-chamber of the noble lord. The Cabinet or a 
committee of the Cabinet. 
state auctioneer. Compare IF 10. 
back-door. Some committee. 
quarrelling. Compare IF 10. 

IF [126] quantum. Amount. 

IF [128] composition. Agreement. A creditor “com¬ 
pounds” with an insolvent debtor for a less sum than the 
debt. 

you give its death-wound. Because England already taxed 
imported tobacco, and Virginia tobacco could not endure an¬ 
other tax. 

IF [130] treasury extent. A writ for valuing lands of a 
debtor that are to be taken in payment of his debt. 

empire of Germany. Not the present empire; the Holy 
Roman Empire is meant. 

IF [132] certain colonies only. Only those that should 
choose to contribute instead of being taxed. 

IF [133] dd)t. An evidence of the government’s credit. 

IF [134] Ease would retract, etc. Paradise Lost, iv, 96-97. 
Milton has recant, not retract. 

IF [136] return in loan. The reference is to Lord North’s 
Indian Act of 1773, by which £1,400,000 were loaned to the 
East India Company at four per cent, and the annual pay¬ 
ment of £400,000 by the company to the government was 
remitted until the loan should be discharged. 
enemies. France and Spain. 

IF [137] ties . . . light as air. Compare Othello III, iii, 
322-524. 

links of iron. Compare Julius Caesar I. iii, 94-95. 
grapple. Compare Hamlet I, iii, 63. 

turn their faces. Compare 1 Kings viii, 44, 45. Daniel 
vi, 10. 

of price. Compare Matthew xiii, 46. 

cockets . . . clearances. Most of the nouns of this sen- 


NOTES 


151 


tence are custom-house terms. A cocket is a custom-house 
seal or certificate. A clearance is a permit for a vessel to 
sail. 

spirit. Compare ^neid vi, 726, 727. Dryden’s translation, 
982-985: 

One common soul 

Inspires and feeds and animates the whole. 

This active mind, infus’d through all the space. 

Unites and mingles with the mighty mass. 

11 [138] land tax act. An act passed by Parliament each • 
year for raising revenue. 

mutiny bill. A bill providing for the discipline of army 
and navy, passed by Parliament each year. 

H [139] profane herd. Horace, Odes, III, i, 1: Odi pro- 
fanum vulgus. I hate the profane herd. 

all in alL 1 Corinthians xv, 28. 

\ 



A 




.) 

f 




INDEX 


Numbers in brackets refer to paragraphs; other oumbers refer to pages. 


Abeunt studia, etc., 53 [42]. 

Abrogated the ancient government 
of Massachusetts, 58 [46] and p. 143 
note to [46]. 

Abstract ideas, 34 [14]. 

Abstract liberty, 48 [38]. 

Abstract right, 69 [61]. 

Act of union, 40 [25] and p. 141 note 
to [25]; act of Henry the Eighth, 
69 [62]; act of settlement, p. 146 
note to [79]. 

Actaparentum, etc., 40. 

Acts, p. 144 note to [54]. 

Addison, p. 141 note to [25]. 

Address, 32 [11] and p. 141 note to 
[11] ; 69 [62] and p. 145 note to [62]; 
p. 147 note to [88]. 

Admit the people of our colonies into 
an interest in the constitution, 73 
[68]; 118 [137]. 

African trade, 37 [20] and p. 141 note 
to [20]. 

Agriculture of the colonies, 42 [29]. 

Aid, p. 148 note to [99]. 

All in all, p. 151 note to [139]. 

America worth fighting for, 45 [31]. 

American financiers, 74 [70] and 
p. 145 note to [70]. 

Ancient indulgence, 46 [35] and 
p. 142 note to [35]. 

Ancient methods and forms, 32 [12]. 

Angola negroes, 65 [56] and p. 144 
note to [56]. 

Arbuthnot, p. 144 note to [57]. 

Arnold, Matthew, p. 143 note to [40]. 


Art of Sinking in Poetry, The, p. 144 
note to [57]. 

Assemblies, colonial legislative, 49 
[39]. 

Auction of finance, 32 [10], 109 [124], 
111 [127]. 

Authority, legislative, 87 [88] and 
p. 147 note to [88]. 

Bacon, p. 144 note to 53. 

Bar, 36 [17] and p. 141 note to [17]. 

Barrington, Judge, 87 [88] and p. 147 
note to [88], 

Bathurst, Lord, 40 [25] and p 141 
note to [25]. 

Bengal, 118 [136], 

Bibliography, 21. 

Bills of pains and penalties, 32 [11]. 
and p. 141 note to [11]. 

Blown about by every wind, 26 [2] 
and p. 138 note to [2]. 

Books of curious science, 64 [54]. 

Boston Port Bill, p. 138 note to [4]; 
100 [109]; 101 [110], and p. 149 note 
to [110]. 

Boundaries, shadowy, 31 [9] and 
p. 139 note to [9]. 

British Empire, 26 [2] and p. 149 note 
to [121]; source of wealth in the, 
81 [79]. 

British strength, 46 [34] and p. 142 
note to [34]. 

Brunswick, House of, 40 [25]. 

Burgoyne, General, p. 142 note to 45 
[31]. 


153 




154 


INDEX 


Burn their books, 64 [54] and p. 144 
note to [54], 

Burke, Edmund, born, 11; religion, 
11; schooling, 11; college days, 11; 
habits of reading 11; law student, 
11; goes to London, 12; travels, 
12; first publications, 12; marries, 
12; Annual Register, 12; secretary 
to Hamilton, 13; pensioned, 13,19: 
literary club, 13; secretary to 
Rockingham, 13; first election to 
Parliament, 13; opposes the king’s 
policy, 13; the Wilkes case, 14; 
elected member for Bristol, 15; 
speeches on America, 15; opposed 
to armed force, 15; refuses to obey 
instructions, 15; member for Mal- 
ton, 16; disappointed by his party, 
16; party services, 16; poverty and 
debts, 16, 20; charges against 
honesty of. 16; irritability, 16; poli¬ 
tical enemies, 16; refuses oflSce 
under Shelburne, 16; in opposition 
with Fox, 16; Paymaster, 16, 17; 
advocates reform in India, 16; im¬ 
peaches Hastings, 17; opinions of 
the French Revolution, 18; retires 
from parliament, 19; death, 19; 
Johnson’s opinion of, 20; Mac¬ 
aulay’s opinion of, 20; permanent 
value of speeches, 20; Fox’s 
opinion of, 20. 

Calamity, public, 29 [7]. 

Carolina, spirit of liberty in, 51 [41], 

Changes in parliament, 27 [4] 

Charity, Roman, 43 [29] and p. 142 
note to [29]. 

Charles, the First, p. 146 note to [79]; 
the Second, p. 146 note to [79], 

Chatham, 105 [119], 

Chester, 84 [84]. 

Chicane, 52 [42] and p. 143 note to 
[42]. 

Children of men, 62 [50]. 

Church of England, 50 [40], 51 [41]. 

Civil litigant, the colonies as, 69 [61] 
and p. 145 note to [61]. 


Clouds and darkness, 39, [25] and 
p, 141 note to [25]. 

Cockets and clearances, p. 150 note 
to [137]. 

Coke, Sir Edward, 67 [59] and p. 144 
note to [59]. 

Colonies, number of people in, 34 
[15]; no narrow system of govern¬ 
ment suited to, 35 [16]; commerce 
of, 35-42 [17-28]; agricul ture of, 42 
[29]; fisheries of, 43 [30]; owe 
nothing to English care, 44 [30]; 
are worth fighting for, 45 [31]; 
temper and character of, 47 [37 et. 
seg.]; legislative assemblies of, 49 
[39]; religion of, 50 [40] and p. 143 
note to [40]; education in, 52 [42]; 
distance from England, 54 [43]; 
65 [57], 88 [89]; three ways to deal 
with, 59 [40 e/. seg.]; proposal to 
give up, 60 [47]; proposal to prose¬ 
cute as criminals, 66 [58-59]; as 
civil litigant and culprit, 69 [61]; 
the complaint of, 71 [65]; have 
further views, 74 [70] and p. 145 
note to [70]; legal competency of, 
89 [91],94[99]; reimbursed,95[101]; 
should be admitted to an interest 
in the constitution, 73 [68],118[137]. 

Colony agents, 31 [10] and p. 140 note 
to [10]; 111 [127]. 

Commerce, 35-42 [17-28]. 

Committee of the whole, p. 139 note 
to [5]. 

Comparative state, 36 [19] and p. 141 
note to [19]. 

Complexions, 45 [31] and p. 142 note 
to [31]. 

Compromise and barter, 106 [120]. 

Concessions of the weak, 33 [13]. 

Conciliation admissible, 32 [11]. 

Concord, of this empire, 73 [67]; 
temple of 89 [92] and p. 148 note to 
[92]. 

Confidence, former unsuspecting, 31 
[9] and p. 139 note to [9]. 

Connecticut, 101 [111] and p. 149 note 
to [111]. 



INDEX 


155 


Constitution, an interest in the, 73 I 
[68], 118 [137]; the English,78 [78] 
and p. 146 note to [78]. 

Cords of man, 107 [120] and p. 149 
note to [120]. 

Corinthians, p. 148,151, notes to [95], 
[139]. 

Corn, 43 [29] and p. 142 note to [29]. 

Council, the Privy ,p. 148 note to [99]. 

County Palatine, p. 147 note to [84]. 

Courts, 103 [114]; of admiralty, 103 
[115] and p. 149 note to [115]. 

Criminal prosecution of colonies, 66 
[58-59]. 

Cromwell, p. 146 note to [79]. 

Culprit, the colonies as, 69 [61] and 
p. 145 note to [61]. 

Culture and Anarchy, p. 143 aote to 
[40]. 

Daniel, p, 151 note to [137]. 

Davenant, 37 [19] and p. 141 note to 
[19]. 

Davis, Sir John, 79 [79] and p. 149 
note to [79]. 

Davis’s Straits, 43 [30]. 

Day-star, 84 [83] and p. 147 note to 
[83]. 

Deceive the burthen 42 [28] and p. 
142 note to [28]. 

Be jure, de facto, 105 [119]. 

Delicate, 26 [2], 127. 

Discord, fomented from principle, 
30 [9] and p. 139 note to [9]; ruling 
by, 31 [9] and p. 139 note to [9], 

Disreputably, 29 [6] and p. 139 note 
to [6]. 

Dissidence of dissent, 50 [40]. 

Distance of the colonies from Eng¬ 
land, 54 [43]. 

Doctrine, fashionable, 27 [2] and p. 
138 note to [2]. 

Dryden, p. 151 note to [137]. 

Dunmore, Lord, 57 [45] and p. 143 
notes to [45] and to p. 144 [55]. 

Durham, 86 [87]. 

Ease, would retract, p. 150 note to 
[134]. 


Education in the colonies, 52 [42]. 

Edward the First, 81 [80] and p. 146 
note to [80]. 

Elizabeth, Queen, 80 [79]. 

Empire, British, 26 [2] and p. 149 
note to [121]; distracted, 30 [8]; 
how composed, 66 [59-61]; concord 
of this, 73 [67]; source of wealth 
in British, 81 [79]; compromise in, 
107 [120]; unity of, 108 [121], of 
Germany, 114 [130] and p 150 note 
to [130]; how held together, 119 
[137], 121 [139]. 

Enfranchisement of slaves, 64 [55] 
and p. 144 note to [55]. 

Ephesians, pp. 138.145 notes to [2], 
[67]. 

Event, 25 [1] and 127. 

Ex vl termini, 67 [60] and p. 145 note 
to [60]. 

Experiments, pernicious, 59 [47]. 

Expei'imentum in corpore vili, 109 
[124]. 

Exodus, p. 148 note to [95]. 

Export trade to the colonies, 36-39. 

Extent, treasury, p, 150 note to [130]. 

Falkland Island, 43 [30] and p. 142 
note to [30], 

Falsify the pedigree, 63 [53]. 

Fashionable doctrine, 27 [2] and p. 
138 note to [2]. 

Fiction lags after truth, 42 [27]. 

Financiers, American, 74 [70] and 
p. 145 note to [70]. 

First lords of trade, p. 148 note to 
[99]. 

Fisheries of the colonies. 43 [30]. 

Force, objections to, 45-46 [32-36]. 

Foreign enemy, 46 [34] and p. 142 
note to [34]; p. 150 note to [136]. 

Former unsuspecting confidence, 31 
[9] and p. 140 note to [9]. 

Form of sound words, 91 [95] and 
p, 148 note to [95]. 

Fresh principles, 27 [2], 

Front, 32 [11] and p. 141 note to[ll]; 
35 [16]. 



156 


INDEX 


Fuller, Mr. Rose, 28 [5] and p. 139 
note to [5], 

Further views, colonists have, 74 
[70] andp. 145 note to [70]. 


Gage, General, p. 143 note to [42]. 

General theories, 34 [14]. 

Genesis, p. 144 note to [50]. 

George the Second, 93 [96] and p. 148 
note to [96], 

Glover, Mr. 36 [17] and p. 141 note to 
[17]. 

Good for us to be here, it is, 39 [25] 
and p. 141 note to [25]. 

Gothic, 52 [41] and p. 143 note to 
[41]. 

Government, good intention in, 31 
[10]; by abstract ideas, 34 [14]; by 
general theories, 34 [14]; must be 
suited to the people, 35 [16], 73 [67]; 
care and caution in, 35 [16]; wise 
and salutary neglect in, 44 [30]; 
determined by the character of the 
people, 47 [37]; must win the 
learned to its support, 53 [42]; is 
relaxed by distance, 55 [43]; 

founded on compromise, 106 
[120]; maintained by loyalty, 120 
[137]. 

Grace and bounty, 32 [11] and p. 141 
note to [11]. 

Grand penal bill, 25 [1] and p. 138 
note to [1]; 31 [10]. 

Grant, taxation by,48 [38], 81 [79], 
83 [83], 86 [87],89[91] andp. 148 note 
to [91], 94 [99], 97 [105] and p. 148 
note to [105]; 98 [106]; 109 [124]; 
power of refusal, 115 [133]. 

Grants, of land, 60 [49]; popular, 81 
[79]. 

Great Britain, 40 [25] and p. 141 note 
to [25]. 

Green, J. R.,pp. 146,150, notes to [79], 

[ 122 ]. 

Grenville, p. 148 note to [99],97 [105], 
105 [119]. 

Guinea, captain,65 [56]. 


Hampden, p. 143 note to [38]. 
Hanover, house of, p. 148 note to 
[79]. 

Harrington, 88 [90]. 

Hebrews, p. 139 note to [7]. 

Henry, the Third, 81 [80] and p. 146 
note to [80]; the Eighth, 83 [83], 
102 [113]. 

Hillsborough, Lord, 93 [96] and p. 148 


note to [96]. 

Holy Roman Empire, p. 150 note to 
[130]. 

Horace, notes to 84,91, [139]. 

Hosea, p. 149 note to [120], 
Hosmer’s, Samuel Adams, p. 143 
note to [42]. 

Hudson’s Bay, 43 [30]. 


Imposition, taxation by, 89 [91] and 
p. 148 note to [91], 98 [106]. 

Inconsiderable person, 30 [7]. 

Increase and multiply, 62 [50] and 
p. 144 note to [50], 

Indian, act of, 1773, p. 150 note to 
[136]. 

Indictment against a whole people, 
67 [59]. 

Indulgence, our ancient, 46 [35] and 
p. 142 note to [35]; systematic, 73 
[ 68 ]. 

Influence, natural or adventitious, 
30 [8] and p. 139 note to [8], 

Instruction, disarm by, 82 [81] and 
p. 147 note to [81]. 

Ireland, 79 [79] and p. 146 note to 
[79]; 108 [122] and p. 150 note to 
[ 122 ]. 

Irish parliament abolished, p. 150 
note to [122]. 

Irish pensioners, 81 [79]. 

Isaiah, p. 147 note to [89]. 


James, the First, p. 146 note to [79]; 

the Second, p. 146 note to [79]. 
Jewel, 107 [120]. 

Job, p. 143 note to [43]. 

Johnson, Dr. p. 144 note to [55]. 
Judges, p. 144 note to [53]. 




INDEX 


157 


Judges, pay of, p. 149 note [115], 

Juridical, 30 [9] and p. 139 note to [9]. 

Juvenal, notes to 63, 88,[120], 116. 

Kings, p. 150 note to [137]. 

Laid hold on, 30 [7] and'p. 139 note 
to [7]. 

Land tax act, 120[138] and p. 151 note 
to [138]. 

Law study in the colonies, 52 [42]. 

Legislative authority, 87 [88] and 
p, 147 note to [88], 104 [118]. 

Legislature, superintending,108 [121] 
and p. 149 note to [121]. 

Leveller, a mighty, 29 [7]. 

Lexington, p. 138 note to [4]. 

Liberty, English ideas of, 47 [38]; 
abstract, 48 [38]; spirit in Virginia 
and Carolina, 51 [41]; inheres in 
some sensible object, 48 [38] and 
p. 143 note to [38], 

Like unto, 90 [94] and p. 148 note to 
[94]. 

Loan, return in, 118 [136] and p, 150 
note to [136]. 

Locke, John, p. 139 note to [7]. 

Logical illation, 106 [120] and p. 149 
note to [ 120 ]. 

Longitude, run the, 44 [30]. 

Lords marchers, 81 [80] and p. 146 
note to [80]. 

Magna charta, 79 [79]. 

Magnanimity, 33 [13]; in politics, 
121 [139]. 

Marchers lords, 81 [80] and p. 146 
note to [80]. 

Mark, p. 141 note to [25]. 

Massachusetts, colony bill, p. 138 
note to [4]; 58 [46] and p. 143 note 
to [46]; declared in rebellion, 69 [62] 
and p. 145 note to [62], 102 [111]. 

Matthew, pp. 141, 144, 148, 150 notes 
to [25], [53], [94], [137]. 

Menacing front of our address, 32 
[11] and p. 141 note to [11], 


Milton, pp. 144, 145, 147, 150 notes to 
[50], [66], [90], [134]. 

Minima, 35 [16] and p. 141 note to 
[16]. 

Ministers of vengeance, 54 [43] and 
p. 143 note on [43]. 

More, 88 [90]. 

Mutiny bill, 120 [138] and p. 151 note 
to [138]. 

Natural or adventitious influence, 
30 [8] and p. 139 note to [8]. 

Navigation acts, 74 [70-72] and p. 
145 note to [71]. 

Non meus hie sermo, 91 [95]. 

North, Lord, 31 [10] and p. 140 note 
to [10]; 32 [11]; 33 [13]; p. 142 note 
to [31]; 109 [123]; p. 150 note to 
[136], 

Obedience is what makes govern¬ 
ment, 57 [45]. 

Oceana, 88 [90]. 

Omen, 25 [1]. 

Ovid, p. 144 note to 53. 

Palatine, county, 84 [84] and p. 147 
note to [84]. 

Pale, p. 146 note to [79]. 

Pamphlet, 76 [73]. 

Paper government, 29 [7] and p. 139 
note to [7]. 

Parliament, enlarged view of, 27 • 
[4]; ought to propose peace, 33 
[13]; as judge and litigant, 69 [61]; 
as superintending legislature, 108 
[121] and p. 149 note to [121]. 

Parties must exist, 117 [134]. 

Partition of Poland, p. 143 note to 
[41]. 

Passed sentence, 25 [1]. 

Peace, 30 [9], 33 [13]; with honor, 33 
[13]. 

Pedigree, falsify the, 63 [53]. 

Pennsylvania, trade of, 41 [26]. 

Person, inconsiderable, 30 [7]. 

Peter, p. 147 note to, [83]. 

Philip the Second, 78 [78] and p. 146 
note to [78].^ 


V 




158 


INDEX 


Plato, 88 [90]. 

Play the game out, 28 [5], 128. 

Poles, 52 [41] and p. 143 note to [41]. 

Pope, p. 144 note to [57]. 

Posita luditur area, 116 [133] 

Principles, freih, 27 [2]; of colony 
government, 28 [5]. 

Privilege implies a superior power, 
67 [60]. 

Produce our hand, 28 [5], 128. 

Profane herd, 121 [139] and p. 151 
note to [139]. 

Prohibition by proclamation, 82 [81] 
and p. 147 note to [81]. 

Project, 31 [10] and p. 140 note to 

[10] , 32 [11]. 

Protestantism of the Protestant 
religion, 51 [40]. 

Psalms, p. 144 note to [50]. 

Pym, p. 143 note to [38]. 

Quebec, p. 148 note to [93]. 

Quebec act, p. 138 note to [4]. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 67[59] andp. 144 
note to [59]. 

Ransom, 32 [10] ; 109 [124]; 111 [127]. 

Rebellion declared in Massachu¬ 
setts, 69 [62] and p. 145 note to[62]. 

Reconciliation, 33 [13]. 

Refined policy, 31 [10]. 

Refusal, power of, 115 [133], 

Registry, 32 [11] and p. 140 note to 

[ 11 ] . 

Religion of the colonies, 50 [40] and 
p. 143 note to [40]. 

Representation, taxation without, 
76 [74], 86 [87]; granted to Wales, 
83 [83]; virtual, 87 [88] and p. 147 
note to [88]; substitute for 88 [89]; 
and legislation, 104 [118]. 

Republicof Plato, 88 [90]. 

Requisitions, 97 [105] and p. 148 note 
to [105]. 

Responsibility of ministers, p. 148 
note to [99]. 

Restoration, the, 80 [79] and p. 146 
note to [79]. 


Return in loan, 118 [1361 and p. 150 
note to [136]. 

Revenue by grant, see taxation. 

Revenue by imposition, see taxa¬ 
tion. 

Revenue from America, 118 [136], 

Revolution, the, 80 [79] and p. 146 
note to [79]. 

Rhode Island, 101 [111] and p. 149 
note to [111]. 

Rice, Mr. 74 [70]. 

Richard the Second, 84 [84], 

Roman Catholic religion, 50 [40]. 

Roman charity, 43 [29] and p. 142 
note to [29], 

Ruling by discord, 31 [9] and p. 139 
note to [9]. 

Run the longitude, 44 [30] and p. 142 
note to [30], 


Sensible object, 48 [38] and p. 143 
note to [38]. 

Serbonian bog, 72 [66] and p. 145 note 
to [66]. 

Serpent, 43 [30] and p. 142 note to 
[30]. 

Shadowy boundaries, 31 [9] and p. 
139 note to [9]. 

Shakspere, pp. 141,143,149,150 notes 
to [11], [45], [120], [137]. 

Slave trade, 37 [20] and p. 141 note to 

[ 20 ]. 

Slaves, haughty, 107 [120] and p. 149 
note to [120]. 

So far Shalt thou go, 54 [43] and 
p. 143 note to [43]. 

Speech would betray you 63 [53] and 
p. 144 note to [53]. 

Spirit of the colonies, 46 [34], 47 [37]. 

Spoliatis arma super sunt, 63 [52] 

Stamp act. pp. 133,139,145,147 notes 
to [2], [3], [9], [69], [90], 93 [96]; 
p. 148 note to [99]. 

Startle, 71 [66] and p. 145 note to [66]. 

State, comparative, 36 [19] and p 141 
note to [19]. 

Suit, loss of my,72 [66]. 





INDEX 


159 


Siirnim corda, 121 [139], 

Swift, p. 144 note to [57]. 

% 

Tartars, 61 [50] and p. 144 note to 
[50]. 

Taste of death, 41 [25]. 

Taxation, and liberty, 48 [38]; by 
grant, 48 [38], 81 [79], 83 [83], 86 
[87], 89 [91] and p. 148 note to [91]; 
94 [99] p. 148 note to [105]; 109 [124]; 
115 [133] by imposition, 89 [91] and 
p. 148 note to [91]; right of, p 139. 
note to [9]; 71 [66]; 104 [118], 106 
[120]; the origin of the trouble, 76 
[74]; of Virginia tobacco, 112 [128] 
and p. 150 note to [128]. 

Taxalion no Tyranny, p. 144 note to 

[55] . 

Tea-tax, pp. 138,139 notes to [4], [5]. 
Temper and character of the 
colonies, 47 [36 et. scg.]. 

Thurlow, 53 [42] and p. 143 note to 
[42]. 

Ties light as air, p. 150 note to [137]. 
Timothy, pp. 139, 148 notes to [7], 
[95]. 

Title, the assertion of my, 72 [66]. 
Tobacco, Virginia, 112 [128] and p. 
150 note to [128]. 

Tories, p. 139 note to [9]; p. 147 note 
to [88]. 

Touch with a tool, 91 [95], and 148 
note to [95]. 

Touched and grieved, 85 [85], 90 
[94], 92 [96]. 

Trade with the colonies, 35-42[17-28]; 
African, 37 [20] and p. 141 note to 
[20]; attempts to restrict slave 
trade, 65 [56] and p. 144 note to 

[56] ; laws, 74 [70] and p. 145 noto 
to [70]; 82 [81]; p. 148 note to [96]. 

Transportation bill, p. 138 note to 
[4]. 


Treasury extent, p. 150 note to [130]. 

Truck and huckster, 55 [43]. 

Trust, 26 [2]. 

Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, pp. 144, 
146 notes to [47], [73]. 

Turk, government of, 55 [43]. 

Union, act of, 40 [25] and p. 141 note 
to [25]. 

Unity, of spirit, 73 [67]; of the 
empire, 108 [122]. 

Unsuspecting confidence, 31 [9] and 
p. 140 note to [9]. 

Utopia 88 [90]. 

Vane, p. 143 note to [38]. 

Vergil, notes to 40 p. 151 [137]. 

Veto power, p. 149 note to [111]. 

Vexed, 44 [30], and p. 142 note to 
[30]. 

Virginia, spirit of liberty in, 51 
[41]. 

Virtually represented, p. 147 note 
to [88]. 

Wales, 81 [80]. 

Wax and parchment, 62 [50] and 
p. 144 note to [50]. 

Whigs, opinions on taxation, 
p. 139 note to [9]; opinions on 
representation, p. 147 note to [88]. 

Wield the thunder, 45 [31] and 
p. 142 note to [31]. 

William, Prince of Orange, p. 146 
note to, [79], 

Winged ministers of vengeance, 54 
[43] and p. 143 note to [43]. 

Wise beyond what was written 
91 [95] and p. 148 note to [95]. 

Ye gods, annihilate, etc., 66 [67] 
and p. 144 note to [57]. 


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